


The Last Stark

by Callioope



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 64,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callioope/pseuds/Callioope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a girl shows up in Saltpans who looks just like the missing Stark daughter, Gendry, Harwin and Lem attempt to pass her off as Arya in hopes of receiving the large reward the Lord of Winterfell is offering for her return. Inspired by the film Anastasia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

 

Sansa stood at the window, her back to him as she stared down at the grounds of Winterfell. From his chair in the corner, from all the way across the room, he could see the view without looking: the broken towers, the scorch marks, the felled trees in the godswood. He knew it all, he could close his eyes and his mind would fly over the ruins of Winterfell.

Though it had been years since the Boltons scourged their home, Winterfell was still not the same.

Take, for example, the very room they now occupied. Once, it had belonged to his sister. No, he reminded himself. It had belonged to his cousin. He could barely remember what it had looked like then, but he forced himself to push aside the damaged furniture piled up along one wall and the cobwebs hanging like drapes in the corners of the ceiling.

If he tried he could almost see—just there, in front of him, had been the four-post bed where she had repacked her trunk, the day he last saw her. He could not tell you the color of her dress, or the sheets, or the curtains. A little to the left, the place Nymeria had sat, disobedient and lovable. He could not remember what commands she’d given her wolf or even the sound of her voice as she gave them. And right here—this very spot he now sat in—had been the place he’d handed her Needle.

Yes, he could see the ruins of Winterfell in his mind’s eye, but not what mattered most: the look of joy on her face, the feel of her arms as she hugged him. That was the greatest ruin of all.

Sansa sighed, disrupting the silence that had settled between them. It was common, in the years since Lady Brienne and Jaime Lannister had returned his oldest sister—no, cousin—to Winterfell. The quiet had entrenched itself, had lingered and remained in a way that none of the other Starks had managed.

“It’s strange to think how happy we were,” Sansa said. The sound of her voice unnerved him in the emptiness of Arya’s old bedroom. “The hopes of summer children.”

It grated on him, her moping, her wistfulness of the past, for no reason other than it reflected his own, and it seemed the room was stiflingly dense with nostalgia.

“We can be happy again,” he said, feeling a little bit like the young Jon Snow that had always been annoyed by Sansa Stark. He spoke simply to disagree with her.

She looked back at him, finally, the sad look, a noble quiet, like a parent at the same time amused at the naïve hope of a child and saddened by it. A decade later, a decade of death and grief, and even sadness was beautiful on Sansa Stark.

“It will never be the same.”

He would never get used to it—that look on her face, the tired wisdom behind her eyes. It reminded him of their father. (No, not _their_ father, _her_ father. Ned Stark had not fathered Jon Snow. He had to keep reminding himself. It had been years since Melisandre had read the truth in her flames about his parentage, and years still since Howland Reed had confirmed it, and years still since he had ridden the back of a dragon and Daenerys Targaryen had legitimized him, not as Lord Stark of Winterfell, but Lord _Targaryen_ of Winterfell, son of Prince Rhaegar and Lady Lyanna.)

Sansa had never talked to him about what had happened to _her_ during all those years. When she rode through the gates of Winterfell for the first time between a woman knight and the Kingslayer, he had immediately assumed it was another imposter, like Jeyne Pool, trained to play a part, to lay claim to Winterfell.

At the time, Brienne had simply explained that they’d found her in the Vale, with a man named Peter Baelish, an old friend of Catelyn Stark. And eventually, one day, Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer had apologetically laid the full story bare: After murdering her father right before her eyes, King Joffrey had abused her, hurt her, threatened her, the full extent to which Jaime could only really imagine, having only heard of it second-hand. She’d been forced to marry the Imp. And when Joffrey died choking on his own drink, she had fled into what she thought was the safety of her aunt’s home, only to be held captive and manipulated by a person she’d thought was a family friend.

_It will never be the same_.

He had to give in. She was right. “I know.” He sighed and looked down at the blank parchment in front of him. An hour had passed since they’d first come to this room—to _her_ room—and he hadn’t even dipped his quill in the inkwell.

“Just have Maester Samwell do it,” Sansa said, eying the parchment as though it was one of the trails of mud he often left throughout the castle.

Sam had, in fact, offered several weeks ago to write it, but Jon had insisted it was something he ought to do himself, and Sam had not argued.

It had to come from another Stark, he insisted—this reward they hoped would bring the last Stark child home, this plea to help find his sister (cous…. Oh, the Others take him. Arya would always be his sister).

Unlike Jon, Sansa refused to hope that their sister may still be alive. Hope was just another dagger that could twist in her heart into disappointment. But Jon, in a way that was unbecoming of a man of his stature, stoked hope like it was the last dying ember in the deep winter north of the Wall. In every way, Jon and Sansa were different.

Despite everything, he found it sort of amusing that he—Jon Snow, the bastard, the unwanted child—and Sansa Stark were the last two left. It was like some twisted, bitter joke the world had played. Sansa, taking after her mother, had never really been kind to him. And he had to admit, he had always preferred his other sister, the one that looked like him and laughed like him and, well, got into trouble like him.

Sansa seemed to sense what he was thinking. “I miss her, too.”

The Last Stark, they called her. The last one to return home. Though the others had returned home in caskets. Robb, killed and mutilated by the Freys. Bran, the last greenseer, killed by the Great Other. Rickon, who had fought savagely with the wildlings against the Others, killed in battle.

But Arya had never been seen again.

He thought about the day he had last seen her. In this very room, they had said their good-byes. This time, as he thought of it, he imagined he could remember that look of glee on her face, and he smiled in spite of himself.

“What?” Sansa said, looking at him sharply.

“I was just thinking of the last time I saw her.”

Sansa frowned. “I was mad at her, the last time I saw her.”

“I gave her a sword.”

This was clearly the first Sansa had ever heard of this. “You what?”

“It was a small thing. Mikken forged it for me.” His smile broadened. “It was called Needle.”

“Needle?”

“I named it after her favorite thing.”

Sansa’s eyebrows furrowed as she thought back to all those years ago, and when she figured it out, a small smile hooked the edge of her lips.

“I bet she loved it.”

Jon nodded.

“I wonder if she still has it,” he said, looking out the window, over the grounds of Winterfell and the hills of the North. “Wherever she is.”


	2. A Rumor in Saltpans

 

At the end of the Trident, in the narrow mouth of the Bay of Crabs, a small castle loomed over the meager beginnings of a young port town. The pale, mid-morning sun hovered in the sky, a symbol of the hesitance that had pervaded the town of Saltpans since the infamous raid that had demolished it eight years earlier.

The castle itself bore no evidence of the raid, no scars that spoke of the cruelty that had laid waste to the port, but radiating from the shoreline was a short row of houses, shops, taverns and inn, some of which still bore the fresh scent of pine.

Ser Quincy Cox had died in the war, slain by Daenrys Targaryen’s army, and the new queen of Westeros had granted the humble keep to a knight who had fought bravely enough to receive a reward, but apparently not brave enough to win more appealing lands. In the wake of Ser Cox’s disappearance, the people had slowly trickled back to the town, erecting small huts, then shops, then taverns and inns, but even now, eight years later, the town was stinted, quiet and untrusting. They did not take to outsiders.

Lem could not blame them for that, nor did he much care, really. He hadn’t taken to the town. He was beginning to loathe it, even. If something didn’t happen soon, he might even succumb to Harwin’s insistence they travel up the Kingsroad, risk the journey through the Neck and ask for a job in Winterfell.

Harwin was always harping on about Winterfell. “The war is over. It’s peace time. Summer has returned. The journey will not be so hard, Lord Jon will remember me.” It was all Lem could do not to laugh in his face.

The nephew of the Dragon Queen, who had been beyond the Wall and back, legitimized both by Stannis Baratheon and later the Queen herself, and fought back the Others, would remember a guard whom he had not seen in a decade, who had been presumed dead eight years earlier? The man was desperate.

Still, when it came to desperation, that was something Lem could understand. They were all desperate. So much for peace time. The little town of Saltpans struggled to recover, and here was Lem Lemoncloak, former outlaw, festering in the smelly town by the sea.

He leaned against a post in the market and watched the fishing boats dock. The young men hoisted the barrels and baskets and nets full of stinking sea food over their shoulders, and Lem cringed at their youth, hating that he felt old, hating that he cared.

For a small town, the market place din could rise to cacophonous levels that made him regret his previous night of drinking. Mothers barking out orders, put this here, put that there.  The shrill shouts of house wives, there to sell the morning catch. The booming yells of captains on the sea. Even the gossip—oh, the gossip of a port town was the worst. As the sun rose higher in the sky, he overheard the scraps of stories, fragments of rumors sewn together to form the most distorted quilt of news. This lord had wed that lady? Scandalous! The Dragon Queen had welcomed what barbarians into the Red Keep? Outrageous!

Today, though early, there were already whispers, some important news from White Harbor.

 _I was a soldier once_ , he thought to himself. There was no use for soldiers in peace time.

Technically, he was part of the Saltpans guard, a loose, rag tag bunch of men charged with protecting the town from raids such as the like that had demolished it. Along with Harwin and a few other men, he patrolled the streets, his sword swaying his hip, surely rusting in its scabbard from lack of use. They were not needed. Scum like the Brave Companions and the Clegane brothers were not tolerated under the Dragon Queen’s rule. But Saltpans was wary, and they employed the guard anyways, though naturally on a stinted salary.

Lem watched the cooks gather in the marketplace, buying the fresh fish and lugging it back to their taverns. He was sick of the smell of fish. He was sick of the taste of fish. Bloody port town.

“…so they think she’s still alive?” A wide-eyed fishwife said to a pimply sailor.

“That’s the word from White Harbor,” he said, nodding conspiratorially, reminding Lem of a gossiping housewife.

Lem rolled his eyes and moved on towards the dock, continuing his rounds, stretching his legs.

A larger ship was throwing anchor in the harbor. He lingered near the dock, watching it, wondering idly if perhaps he’d have a chance for excitement, if the foreign ship would bring daring thieves or rough men from across the Narrow Sea, looking for violence and plunder. But of course it was not the case. Just another trade boat, which the growing town welcomed; he watched with narrow eyes as some official greeted the captain eagerly.

“Have you heard the news from White Harbor?” The official’s voice rang out over the dock.

 _Not this again_ , Lem thought, but then he slowed his walk. Perhaps the news from White Harbor regarded some nefarious band of outlaws, en route to pillage the town and bring some action to this boring, wasted heap of a port.

The captain’s puzzled brow confirmed that he had not yet heard the news.

“They say one Stark may still be alive.”

Lem audibly groaned at this, and the captain’s face turned slightly towards him, but did not look directly at him. He moved away a little bit, to lean against the wall of one of the fish market stalls, and watched the exchange from the shadows.

“Stark girl?” he heard the captain ask. Clearly he was foreign; from the accent and the look of him, Lem guessed he’d come from Braavos.

“Yes, the ruling family in the North, from Winterfell.”

“Oh, of course. The Dragon prince is lord there now, yes?”

The official nodded. “Devastating, what happened to the Starks back during the war. Simply devastating. Lord Ned Stark, falsely accused of treason…” Lem was not certain about the details, but the truth had come to light soon after Cersei Lannister’s trial. Her children were not Baratheons after all. Apparently Ned Stark had been executed for being the first to know.

“…and the youngest died fighting the Others,” the official finished.

“So it goes, in times of war,” the captain said sadly.

“But the youngest daughter, Arya Stark, it is rumored she may be still alive. The Lord of Winterfell is offering a large reward to whoever finds her and returns her safely to her home.”

Well, there it was. There’d be no putting up with Gendry today. He could only hope the rumors might not reach the smith.

Lem yawned as the captain launched into the story of how Arya Stark had last been seen at the Inn at the Crossroads, how she’d been with the Hound, whom had been found lurking in the woods not far up the river. How the girl the Bolton bastard had married was an imposter named Jeyne Poole.

“She must have left from this very port,” the official was saying. “This very port, eight years ago.”

The captain nodded, only vaguely interested, and glanced back towards his ship, where he was needed.

But the official pressed on.

“The _Titan’s Daughter_ … you’re well-known here, yes. You’ve been trading here how long now?”

The captain shrugged. “Ten, fifteen years, maybe? But for a four-year gap, during the war and just after…”

“You don’t think you’d have seen her, then, do you?”

Lem could not believe the impertinence of such a question, but so hungry were these port-dwellers for rumors and gossip and stories that their manner was unabashed.

“I see many people,” the captain said placidly.

“Yes,” the official went on, “But do you recall anything strange? A lord’s daughter would surely have stood out. It would have been eight years ago.”

The captain paused then, thinking. “I’ve taken no lord’s daughters,” he said, and the eager light faded slightly from the official’s eyes. “But there was a girl, yes, a strange girl. That was a face I would never forget. It was eight years ago, yes, she asked for passage to the Wall.”

At this, the official’s eyes lit up. “Yes, her brother was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch around that time.”

This did not faze the captain at all. “We could not take her there. Her coin was enough only for Braavos.” The captain fidgeted with his collar slightly.

“What did she look like?”

“Dark hair, grey eyes. Very small, but bright, a fast learner.”

“Yes, she would have the Stark look about her, then,” the official said, nodding excitedly.

“Not a lord’s daughter,” the captain insisted. “Short hair, like a boy. Dressed like a boy. Swore like a boy,” he said too, smiling slightly. But then his face darkened. “She was a pupil of the House of Black and White.”

“No, no,” the official said, his face falling with disappointment. “She was a lord’s daughter. Just a child.”

The captain shuddered again and turned back towards his ship. “As you say.”

But this was interesting news to Lem.

He’d never really believed that Arya had made it to Saltpans. Not if she’d been in the company of the Hound. He’d always assumed that the man had killed her and thrown her body in the river.

Perhaps, though, he’d been wrong.

Perhaps she had made it to Braavos.

And if she had made it to Braavos, away from the fighting and the killing, perhaps she had survived after all.

Even if she hadn’t, Lem realized with a spreading excitement, the rumors were enough.

Maybe it was time Arya Stark returned home.

\--

Gendry liked his forge. He liked the feel of the fire, the heat against his skin, the way the sweat trickled down his back. He liked that he couldn’t hear anything over the ringing noise of the metal. Most of all, he liked that he could pound at the steel and mold it, shape it, and create something beautiful and delicate out of a lump of gray rock.

Not that he’d made any swords in a long time.

With a sigh, he threw the last horseshoe into the basket, untied his apron and left it on the bench, and left the forge.

The hall was about half full when he entered, but it was still early in the evening and he knew it’d be louder later. Harwin and Lem sat in the back corner, in their usual spot. They were already into their cups, whispering conspiratorially. Probably arguing about Winterfell again.

He sidled over to the very end of the bar, near the corner where they sat, and ordered a beer. As he waited, he thought of the last time Lem and Harwin had argued over Winterfell. It must have been only a fortnight ago. The arguments were becoming more frequent.

Gendry knew that Lem hated Saltpans. To tell the truth, Gendry wasn’t much fond of it, either. He’d been in Saltpans, a year or so after the raid. The Brotherhood Without Banners had arrived on horseback, hooves silent on the snow that covered what they thought had been the road. In some places, they could still see the skeletons of homes, broken rafters hanging in the wind. The deserted town still gave him nightmares, but the worst, the absolute worst part, was the gleaming, untouched castle towering over the emptiness.

Every time he looked up at that castle—even if Ser Cox was long gone—it made his teeth grind, to think of it still.

They hadn’t stayed long in Saltpans. Word came fast that Lady Brienne had returned to the Inn at the Crossroads with the Kingslayer and a bastard girl from the Vale, claiming she was Sansa Stark. There was bound to be trouble. They had ridden all night to get to the Hollow Hill, their horses frothing, pushed beyond exhaustion. But they arrived at the same time as Brienne.

The girl who stood beside her in the little cave hall did not bear any resemblance to Arya. At first, Gendry thought it was because she was not really the other Stark daughter. She hard dark hair, but the roots were a bright red. She was tall and poised, and as she stepped towards the fire Gendry realized she did not hold herself like a bastard would.

Harwin had not been there; if he had, he’d be able to confirm whether or not it really was Sansa Stark. Instead, the guard was out killing Freys on Lady Stoneheart’s command. The whole cave sat in silence, holding their breath, waiting for Lady Stoneheart to speak her garbled speech.

When Lady Stoneheart’s eyes fell upon her daughter, she saw herself reflected there, and she wasn’t Lady Stoneheart anymore, she was Lady Catelyn Stark. (Harwin had told him later that before she died, Lady Stoneheart had looked just like her daughter, but Gendry couldn’t wrap his head around that idea.)

“I’m sorry,” Lady Catelyn said. Sansa looked at her mother with tears shining in her eyes, and Gendry couldn’t help but wonder what Arya would have done, and he hated that that was his first thought.

“Go to Winterfell,” Lady Catelyn said to her daughter. “There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.”

Then Lady Catelyn nodded to several of the guards, and they tried to escort Sansa from the hall, but she screamed and shouted and cried for her mother and would not go. In the end, it was the Kingslayer, with a gentle hand on her arm, guiding her towards the door.

“Lady Brienne,” Lady Catelyn said, barely understandable now.

Brienne seemed to understand immediately what Catelyn wanted, and she approached the stone throne slowly, but dutifully.

She said something then that Gendry did not understand. Several of the men closest to her tensed, their hands reaching for the pommel of their swords. But Lady Catelyn held out her hand.

“I will bring Arya home, too,” Brienne promised, and then, with tears in her eyes, she raised her sword and swung it down. And that was the end of the Brotherhood Without Banners.

He wasn’t quite sure what made him think of those memories on this day, as he stood at the bar, staring out through the window at the setting sun. He could see the harbor from here, see the slow trickle as the last of the marketsellers returned to their homes. Docked in the harbor was a large ship, different from the usual, smaller fisherman’s boat. A trade ship.

It was sometimes easy to forget that Saltpans was a seaport, so rarely did they receive foreign ships, though it happened with more frequency now that the city was expanding.

“Gendry?” said the wench at the bar, a woman named Eleine. “Your beer?”

“Thanks,” he said, leaving several coins on the bar. He turned back to join Harwin and Lem.

They did not look up as he approached. As he walked towards them, he overheard snatches of Harwin and Lem’s conversation.

“…incident with Jeyne Poole… won’t recognize their own sister?”

“It’s been years, Harwin,” Lem insisted. “Memories fade. People grow up, look different. She was a child, last they saw her. Now she’s a woman-grown.”

Gendry arched his eyebrow as he eased onto the bench, and Lem nearly jumped in surprise. Harwin sent him a severe look.

“Who’s a woman-grown?” Gendry asked.

He saw Harwin’s slight shake of his head, saw Lem frown in return. Neither said anything for several moments.

“Evenin’, Gendry,” Lem said, looking him over. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that scowl’s a shade darker today. What is it this time? Another mewling hedge knight, grumbling about the price of a horse shoe?”

Gendry still hadn’t figured out why he tolerated the yellow-cloaked knight. At least he got on well enough with Harwin.

Across the table, Harwin sent Gendry a worried look. “Eight years, to the day,” he said.

“Eight years?” Lem asked, grabbing a roll from the basket in the middle of the table and ripping into it with his teeth. “Since what?”

“Since Arya Stark ran away.”

Lem turned back towards Gendry, one eyebrow raised in surprised.

Gendry rolled his eyes and looked out the window of the inn to watch the fisherman unload their wares.

He hated this stinking town.

But where was he to go?

“There’s a rumor from White Harbor,” Lem blurted out. Gendry heard Harwin clear his throat, but Lem blustered on. “That Lord Dragon Prince of Winterfell, Jon What’s-His-Name, is offering a pretty penny for her return.”

“Jon Snow,” Gendry said quietly. “What’s this rumor, then?”

“They’re saying, out there on the street, that she survived the war.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Gendry saw Harwin bury his face in his hand, but he kept his gaze on Lem’s.

A mild anger kindled in the pit of his stomach. He blinked at Lem in disbelief.

Years ago, when she’d first run away, Gendry had insisted she was still alive, that nothing could kill his friend Arry, his friend Weasel. She was too clever, she always found a way to survive. But Lem had chided him, saying it was childish and foolish to continue to hope after all these years.

Even Harwin eventually agreed with Lem. From that day on, Gendry stopped talking about Arya Stark. If anyone ever asked him, he’d say, “The Last Stark is dead.” And he tried desperately to ignore the gnawing denial in his heart.

“How would they even know?” he said softly. “She come back or something?”

“No,” Lem said. “But the sailors on the docks…”

Gendry rolled his eyes. “Every week, some lord’s long lost kin comes back from the dead. And it’s always nothing. It’s no different from the other rumors we’ve heard.”

He could not afford to hope.

“Aye, but it is,” Lem said, after swallowing a large bite. He leaned forward. “There’s a ship came in, one that was here before the raid. Captain Ternys, of _The Titan’s Daughter_ , I overheard him talking about the reward. Said he’d seen a girl, eight years ago, come on his ship that fit that description.”

Gendry snorted. “As if he’d remember a girl from eight years ago.”

“That’s what I thought, but he shook his head, looked almost frightened to mention it. He said he’d remember that girl till the day he died. Small thing, dark hair, gray eyes. She only had enough coin to take her to Braavos. Said something about the House of Black and White.”

When neither of Lem’s companions responded, he continued, “He said she was a pupil of the House of Black and White.”

A dark look fell across Harwin’s face, but he said, “Couldn’t be Arya. Not Arya.”

“Arya Stark is dead,” Gendry said resolutely, ending the conversation.

Gendry struggled through the rest of the evening. It was peacetime, and there were few in Saltpans with a real need for swords. He did his part, smithing horse shoes, candlesticks, odds and ends, scraps of metal for doors, but it paid poorly and good metal was too expensive for most to afford when they’re still trying to rebuild their homes and put food on the table.

It was worse for Harwin and Lem. The Saltpans guard paid next to nothing, and the frequent talk of Winterfell betrayed  Harwin’s homesickness. Still, Gendry refused to leave—he did like his forge, after all, and where else would he go? It didn’t matter much where he smithed; Saltpans was fine enough. Harwin stayed with him, perhaps because he was too old to set out on his own, perhaps because, like Gendry, he still secretly hoped Arya might return to the last town in Westeros she’d been in. 

Lem had never liked Saltpans either. Gendry was convinced the yellow-cloaked soldier stuck around simply because he got a kick out of tormenting him.

The old argument had resurfaced.

“…Winterfell would take us in,” Harwin insisted.

“Winter lingers still in the North,” Lem said. “And we couldn’t make it past the flooded swamp of the Neck, anyways.”

Gendry had heard this argument too many times. He took a long gulp of his beer.

“There are ships,” Harwin insisted. “We only need to make it to White Harbor…”

Lem snorted. “We could not even afford that, between the three of us.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

“We find the girl.”

Gendry set his stein on the table and it clanked loudly at the force. “Enough with this,” he said.

“You do not want to find your friend?” Lem said pointedly. “Isn’t that what you’ve been brooding about these past eight years?”

Gendry remained silent.

“We were one of the last people in Westeros to see Arya. We know what she was like—what she _is_ like. We could find her.”

“How do you plan on funding this mission?” Harwin said. It must have been an argument he’d mentioned earlier, because Lem rolled his eyes like he was expecting it.

“The reward would make it worth it.”

Harwin sighed. “They’re just rumors, Lem.”

Lem tugged at his beard, and Gendry knew there was something else, a wild card, something he hadn’t said yet, some argument he was reserving, that he was hesitant to use. Harwin was glaring at him across the table. He’d already heard it.

“Suppose she is alive,” Harwin said. “She’s not here. We’d know if she was here. Where do you propose we go to look? Braavos? Even if she took _The Titan’s Daughter_ to Braavos, it’s been eight years. Plenty of time to move on.”

 _Plenty of time to move on_ , Gendry thought. _Maybe not_.

Lem sighed. “We don’t have to find Arya to get the reward.”

If it was possible, Harwin’s glare intensified.

“What are you thinking? Another Jeyne Poole?” Gendry said, incredulous. And suddenly the conversation he’d walked in on made sense. He glanced between Harwin and Lem. “You’re not seriously considering this?”

“Of course not,” Harwin grunted, rolling his eyes. But then he wouldn’t quite meet Gendry’s gaze.

“You want to live in Saltpans forever?” Lem said, his eyes shining. “We need the money.”

“ _You_ need the money,” Gendry said.

“You need it as well,” Harwin said quietly.

Gendry stared at him.

“There’d be better work in Winterfell. They’ll have a real need for smiths there.”

“Then let’s go to Winterfell,” Gendry said, shrugging. “We don’t need a fake Arya to do that.”

“And what will Lady Sansa say,” Lem said. “Will she welcome us with open arms, the men who lost her sister?”

There was nothing Gendry could say to that. He wasn’t certain whether Sansa knew or not, but it was possible. Some of the men from the Brotherhood Without Banners had left with Lady Brienne to help escort her home. They might have told her.

“We can’t arrive empty-handed.”

“Jeyne Poole did not fool anyone,” Gendry said quietly. “Do you think Lady Sansa would be fooled?”

“Sansa has not seen her sister for nigh on ten years.”

“And you would dare to parade this mummer’s farce before Lady Sansa? Has she not suffered enough?”

“It would make her happy, to know her sister lived,” Lem argued.

“It’s not right.” Gendry looked at Harwin. “It’s not right, you know it’s not right. And wouldn’t they suspect…?”

“Jeyne Poole looked nothing like Arya.”

“Jeyne Poole _grew up_ with Arya! If anyone could pretend to be Arya, it would be Jeyne Poole,” Gendry insisted, surprised by how forceful he sounded.

“Jeyne Poole did not get along with Arya,” Harwin said quietly. “She did not really care to know her well.”

“You really want to attempt this mummer’s farce, then?”

Harwin sighed. “Arya Stark is dead. It is well known. This reward… others are going to try to claim it, you know. They will bring their girls to Winterfell. They do not have the advantage that we would have. Gendry, you were best friends with her.”

Gendry crossed his arms and looked away, out across the now-bustling hall.

“We could find a girl, we could train her so well… that even we would think it was really her. Even Lady Sansa would think it was her.”

“I can’t believe you’re going along with Lem.”

“We can hold auditions,” Harwin said, looking at Lem. “Put the word out we’re looking for Arya Stark, that we’ll help Arya get back to Winterfell. There are more trade ships that come to visit.” He paused and turned to Gendry. “And maybe, just maybe, one of them will really be Arya.”

“You really think she might be alive, after all this time?” Gendry asked, his voice low.

“Who knows?” 


	3. Journey to the Past

A girl awoke with a start in her bed, the lingering howls of wolves echoing in her ears. But the bare room around her was familiar, was not the dark forest of her dreams. She sat, waiting for the wild beat of her heart to lessen, and tried to empty her mind.

The dreams did not come often, these wolf-dreams where she prowled through underbrush, where she clawed and snapped at cowardly men in their gray and blue coats, where she hunted the shadows of traitors. But whenever the dreams did come, she knew she would struggle through her lessons, her mind would not focus, and even the kindly man’s patience would wear thin.

 _Not today_ , she thought.

Eight years she’d trained. Eight years she had learned and practiced, had studied with the other Faceless Men, had travelled throughout the Free Cities, and, yes, had even delivered the gift. She knew, there were times she was the best of them, the surest, the cleverest. There were times even when she impressed the kindly man.

But even after eight years, despite her skill, despite her progress, they had delayed her initiation. Eight long years of waiting, because she was too young, they said. Because she was not ready.  The anger it kindled felt familiar, reminded her of a wisp of a memory, of someone she might have known long ago. But she was no one, and she had to feel nothing, so she stamped it out and waited patiently.

Today would be her last day as an apprentice. Today was her initiation into the House of Black and White. Today she’d be one of them, a Faceless Man.

Why did the dream have to come today?

Doubt crept into her heart—what mistake would she make? What excuse would they use to delay her initiation another year? The wolf dream was an omen, she knew.

The last wolf dream had come to her over a year ago. She was in Pentos then, studying under a dark woman who called herself Alashara. A girl had done well at her lessons, and so Alashara let her take some of the missions, the taste of independence to prepare her for the day she’d finally be on her own.

Things had been going so well. And one night, she’d dreamt of the woods, of trees brushing her as she raced through the darkness, her smaller cousins struggling to keep up.  She’d dreamt of the moon, the way its light fell upon a small clearing behind an inn. And she stopped and looked. There was a man, sitting on a log, staring out into the woods, lost and lonely. She padded towards the man, smelled his fear. But he let her—let the wolf—approach him. She could sense it then, the sadness, in a way her smaller cousins could not. They could not read the moods of men.

He didn’t care if she killed him.

But she only killed the gray ones, the ones with the blue shapes on their chest. He was not their kin. He did not smell like them. He smelled different. Familiar. He was part of the pack.

She nudged him with her nose, and he held up a large hand and ran it through her fur. And when he looked in her eyes, she saw that his were blue.

She had sat up in bed, her heart pounding then as it did now, an anger boiling within her that she did not understand. And her hands had shaken that morning as she mixed the poison. And when the target had brought the cup to his lips, he could smell that something was wrong. His brow had furrowed and he had handed the cup to his servant. She could hear it still, the clang of the cup as it landed on the cold stone, the thump of the servant’s body, the ringing yell as he demanded her head.

Of course she had gotten away. She could not be caught.

But the damage was done. The target knew the plot, the killing had been sloppy, and an innocent boy had died.

Alashara could not even look at her. She sent a girl back to the temple, and the kindly man had shaken his head. He had asked her, “What is your name?” And she had insisted over and over again, “I am no one.”

It had been the waif who argued on her behalf. And a girl waited six long months before she was allowed to apprentice again.

She would not wait any longer.

She had been good. She’d been perfect.

She was tired of dreaming of wolves.

\--

She donned the black and white robe of the acolytes and made her way to the black pool. The waif led the morning prayer today, while the kindly man knelt in silence, his face tilted down towards the water, his eyes closed.

She tried not to think of this as a sign.

After breaking her fast with the waif, who remained silent the whole time, a girl went back to the main room and sat in one of the alcoves. As she waited, she watched the worshippers come and go. She watched them light their candles, watched them pray, watched them drink from the black up.

Finally, finally, the kindly man came to her, and led her down below to the third level of temple.

She’d been careful all day, repeating to herself all she needed to know. She had done nothing wrong.

They walked in silence, his face solemn, unreadable as ever. A girl could know when the waif lied, she could sometimes tell when her teachers lied, but she could never read the kindly man unless he wished it.

Down the stairs they went, and she might not remember her life before the House of Black and White, but she did remember the first time she’d come down these stairs, counting them as she went. They passed through the final door, across the room, the faces watching her the whole way.

“ _Do they frighten you?_ ” he had once asked her. Her mouth went dry and she licked her lips.

“Sit,” the kindly man said. She did, and he took a seat on the floor before her.

She did not know what made her nervous, then, for his face was as masked as ever.

“You have done well in your studies,” he began. “Izembaro, Alashara, Malazar. They all have many great things to say about your abilities. They have told me you are ready,” he said. “To end your apprenticeship and become one of us.”

A girl bowed her head and did not say anything.

“It is not too late to turn back,” he said. “Are you certain you want this?”

She thought of the wolf dream again, and felt a weight in her chest. But she said, “Yes.”

“Once you are one of us, you cannot turn back. Are you ready?”

She wasn’t sure why he was asking the same question again. “Yes.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“No one.”

He was quiet for some time, and despite her training, she squirmed, ever so slightly.

“No one has a need for a sword.”

From the folds of his robe, he brought forth a short, thin sword. The metal glistened in the torchlight, and a sharp pain stabbed through her heart.

Something twitched in her face.

The kindly man knew, though she did not, what the sword meant to her.

“Every sword has a name. Do you know the name of this one?”

It was a tiny sword. More like a dagger, even. Too small for a name. But it had one, yes, it had one.

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I do not know the name.” Her heart pounded against her ribs and silently she screamed at it to stop.

“You do.” The kindly man waited. “Tell me the name.”

“Needle,” she whispered, ashamed.

It was the wolf dream. The Others take the wolf dream! A girl bit her lip.

The kindly man sighed and nodded. “Tell me again,” he said softly. “Is this what you want?”

This time she could not answer. She simply stared at the sword.

“I am sorry,” he said gently. “But you cannot stay here.”

She had to force herself to wait, she had to take a deep breath and stamp out the small ember of rage threatening to ignite within her. They had delayed everything for so long, how could they take it from her now?

“I have studied,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. “I am ready.”

“You have done your best,” he said, setting the blade on the floor between them. “But you are not meant for this life.”

“I have trained for eight years,” she said, the words rushing out of her, belying the lengthy study that they claimed. She bowed her head. “This is what I want.”

“Yes.” His voice was so low she had to strain to hear it. “But it is not what you were meant for. You must leave.”

He rose to his feet, leaving the blade before her.

“Thank you for your service.”

The door remained ajar after he left. She stared at the sword in front of her, disbelieving. The faces watched. She could not move, she would not move. If she moved, all would be for naught. The years of training and study and waiting. But maybe if she stayed in the room, she’d wake again in her bed, it would all have been a dream.

The waif came for her shortly. She touched her arm, to break her reverie, and picked up the sword, still glinting in the torch light. A girl glared at the sword accusingly. It had betrayed her, her dreams had betrayed her. Now the waif was betraying her.

The waif led her through the halls, up the stairs, through the first floor of the temple.

She paused in front of the doors, and a girl stood beside the weirwood door, unseeing, unfeeling, still numb with disbelief.

“What will I do?”

The waif pressed the sword into her hands.

“You must find the makers of the sword. You must find your family.”

“I am no one. I have no family.”

The waif smiled sadly. “You do. They are waiting for you across the Narrow Sea.”

“I do not know them. I do not care to find them.”

“Liar,” the waif said.

A girl bit her lip.

“Your heart knows what to do. Go to the docks. Go to Westeros.”

A girl did not move, and the waif opened the weirwood door, pushed her through the small gap, and shut it.

When a girl turned, when she tried to pull the door open, she found it locked. There was no turning back.

And a deep despair quenched the last dying embers of her anger.

\--

A girl knew the Purple Harbor well, but now she walked past the docks in a daze. She had slipped the sword through her belt and she felt it against her hip, digging into the flesh, and she wanted to hate it but she couldn’t.

It was special.

Still, she did not know where to begin. There was a time, she knew, long ago, when she had sold mussels along the docks. A girl her age could not do that now. There were other options for a girl in her predicament, but she’d run a man through before she’d let him bed her.

So she wandered, lost and betrayed again, and she hated that the feeling was so familiar and yet offered no help.

She did not remember her name.

She did not remember her family.

She really was no one.

Why did the kindly man call her a liar?

The sword that pinched her side. It was called Needle. It was special. She did not know why, but when she had left the House of Black and White, she had tripped over a hole in the stairs and she knew—that’s where they found it. That’s where she had put it, when they asked her to get rid of all her things.

The sword called Needle was special, and it was the only clue she had about who she was.

As she pushed her way through the crowded dock, past the sailors loading cargo, the fishermen tossing their stinky catch to the waiting merchants, the wives waving their handkerchiefs, she tried to figure out what she ought to do.

But there just weren’t many options for a girl of nine-and-ten with no home and no family. Suddenly the world seemed incredibly vast, and here she was, all alone.

“Send me a sign,” she thought to herself. “A hint. Anything.”

Nothing came.

A man brushed past her, knocking into her shoulder, muttering to himself. “The gall… who do they think they are… they’ll never find a better sailor…” He glared at her as he passed, as though it was her fault, and she felt a sudden urge to start a fight. In her mind’s eye she saw the kindly man, telling her to leave, and she knew she could kill at that moment. She wanted to, needed to desperately.

Again she cursed the wolf dreams, the dreams that always inspired this fire in her, and she struggled to calm herself.

“This was why they made me go,” she realized. It wasn’t just Needle. She might not remember who she was, but she’d never stopped being that girl.

The man disappeared into the crowd and she let her anger disappear with him.

“Cat!”

A man was shouting somewhere off to her right, waving from the loading ramp of one of the ships.

She looked around to see who he was waving at, but no one else seemed to notice him.

She looked back towards him and he was bounding down the ramp, waving, grinning from ear to ear.

“Well, well, well. Cat of the Canals.” He smiled and shook his head. “No mussels, any more, I see.  It has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

She squinted at him, trying to remember. She supposed his face was vaguely familiar, though she could not name him.

“Forgotten me, have you?” He shook his head. “I suppose you had many customers then, you were so clever at selling clams. Tassimo, you remember, I taught you to tie knots. A girl should never forget.”

He looked her over and did not wait for her to respond or recognize him.

“Do you need a job, then?” he asked. “We happen to need another hand aboard The Flying Fish.”

She looked past him, at the ship from which he’d signaled her. A medium-sized ship, with tall sails. Meant for passage across the sea.

“Where are you headed?” she asked, squinting in the sunlight of midday.

“Saltpans.”

 _Saltpans_. The name was like another stab, and she felt more acutely the pinch of Needle at her side. She remembered her prayer earlier, “Send me a sign.” Maybe this was it.

“When do you leave?”

The man called Tassimo glanced back over his shoulder. “An hour.”

“Good,” she said. “What do you need?”

\--

The ocean air blew across her face and she closed her eyes and soaked in the sun. She was never as happy as when she was sailing. The rocking of the ship, the waves splashing against the prow, the wind playing against the sail. It was music and rhythm to her and it soothed her aching heart.

She tried not to think of the House of Black and White, but how could she not when she’d devoted almost half her life to study? And they had tossed her aside like a rotten fish no good for sale.

It made her burn with anger.

She knew a girl should not let anger consume her. A girl was patient and cool. But she was Cat now, Cat of the Canals, and a hot temper flared and she found herself japing and cursing with the sailors as she scrambled up the net to mend knots. She was light on her feet, as if she’d done this all her life, and many of the sailors recognized her and smiled to see her about.

Yes, it made her nervous, that these men seemed to know her life better than she (though none seemed to know where she’d come from originally. “You’re just Cat,” they said.) But it also made her smile, and it took her several days to realize why.

For the first time in eight years, she wasn’t trying to prove herself or impress the Faceless Men. She was allowed to be happy.

The ship bobbed against the waves and the days wore on.

One morning, as she sat on a barrel by the prow, she watched as two boys chased each other across the deck, their wooden swords clanking as they collided. Something tugged at her heart and she tossed the apple core over the side of the ship with more force that may have been necessary.

One night, a father stood at the railing, pointing out across the sea as he taught his son the constellations. “The Galley is there,” he pointed. “And there, the Crone’s Lamp. Do you see?”

And she could almost hear a different voice, similarly deep, pointing out the constellations of the northern sky. “The North,” she thought to herself, running her finger over the hilt of her blade. Little details would come to her like this, many of them useless, but she reminded herself, “One step at a time.” Saltpans, that was where she had been before Braavos. She grew more certain of it each day, as the smell of the Narrow Sea filled her nostrils and she watched the constellations change overhead.

The worst of all came at midday. The whole family was out there, picnicking on the deck, getting in her way as she tried to scrub it clean.

“Mother,” she heard the youngest, a daughter with bright blond hair, ask. “When will we be home?”

“We will land soon, my sweetling,” the mother said, taking her daughter in her arms. “But we are already home when we have each other here.”

Home. Family. Love.

The words echoed in her head, and she thought of what the waif had said to her.

“They are waiting for you across the Narrow Sea.”

Somewhere in Westeros, _someone_ was waiting for her. Mayhaps not a family quite like this one, but someone.

And instead of pain, she felt a wave of relief wash over her at the thought.

Perhaps the kindly man had been right.

She was meant for something else.

If only she knew what that might be.


	4. Once Upon A Summer

It was all he could do not to toss over the table and storm from the room.

“…and Sansa and I would sit for hours, sewing…”

Beside him, even Harwin could not stifle a groan. The girl in front of them hesitated, and Gendry imagined a worried glance pass over her face. He could not look at her, this girl claiming to be Arya Stark, this girl with pitch-black hair and brown eyes and buck teeth.  Arya had dark hair, yes, but it was brown, not black. Honestly, did Lem not even remember her hair color?

Gendry rubbed his face.

“Thank you,” Harwin said, “we’ll let you know.”

The girl mumbled a soft, “Thank you for your time,” and Gendry heard the door to their room open and close.

They sat in the darkening room, neither saying a word. Through the window, he could see a Braavosi ship bobbing at the dock.

“That ship just came in an hour ago,” he said quietly to Harwin.

“We told Lem, no girls after sunset.”

Gendry rubbed his face again. “We tell Lem many things.”

Harwin snorted.

“This is pointless,” he said finally. “If anyone could have done it, it was Jeyne Poole, and the whole realm saw how well that worked. It can’t be done again.”

“One more day,” Harwin said before sighing. “We’ll see who came in on that Braavosi ship. And when she doesn’t show up, we’ll tell Lem.”

Gendry stood and stretched. The room was full of shadows now. Though the sun was still setting, he suddenly felt tired. “I’m going for a walk,” he said over his shoulder as he left.

\--

Cat was the last to leave the ship. She had assisted the passengers with their luggage, helped the sailors with ropes and knots, and busied herself with any task that was presented to her, until finally Tassimo put a hand on her shoulder.

“The sun is setting,” he said. “We are done for the day.”

“Of course,” she said, feeling her throat close. She realized she had been stalling. She hoisted her small pack over her shoulder. It was light, holding only some money, a change of clothes one of the sailors had given her, and Needle, packed tightly away at the bottom. It made the pack slightly awkward, but Needle was small enough, and wouldn’t do her much good in a fight. The sailors had given her several daggers, which occupied the space on her belt, and those would serve her better than an old, tiny sword.

She paused at the top of the ramp, closed her eyes, and breathed in the salty air. On the summer breeze, she could smell the faint scent of fresh pine. But if she was expecting some sort of memory to spring to mind with her first measure of Westeros, she was disappointed.

Opening her eyes, she stepped down the ramp, trying not to feel like she’d made the biggest mistake in the world, trying not to turn around and ask if she could just keep the job with the crew permanently.

“ _Go to Westeros._ ”

Every night during the journey, she had thought of the waif, and the way she had shut the door to the temple behind her.  

 _She knows,_ she had realized a few days later. _She knows exactly who I am, and she would not tell me._

Some days, she felt so lost and hopeless, she wanted nothing more than to go back. “I am no one,” she would insist and they’d have to take her back. Other days, she felt so angry, it’d be too soon if she never saw the House of Black and White again.

The dock was empty. Just ahead of her, the market had mostly cleared. A few fishwives lingered to close up shop. In the distance, she could see a crowd loitering up the hill, towards the taverns and homes that waited them.

Nothing. Nothing was at all familiar about this stinking port.

\--

The brisk air of a port town evening hit him immediately. He relished it. It helped shake the exhaustion out of him, and he sucked it in deeply like a babe that needed its mother’s milk.

The inn sat below the castle, at the bottom of the small hill, but the road continued down a gradual slope towards the dock. He followed it down, watching the bright gold sky fade to orange and pink.

A few people still lingered in the street, making their way home from a long day at the market. He scanned the crowd for unfamiliar faces. Mostly sailors, a few families. No young girls. He allowed himself to sigh with relief. He could not suffer through another day of auditions.

It had been several weeks since Lem first proposed his con, and he hadn’t slept a true wink since. It couldn’t be right, what they were planning to do. He knew Harwin agreed, that Harwin felt guilty, sometimes, too. But the old man wanted to go home, and saw this as his chance.

“What if we get caught?” Gendry had asked one evening when Lem wasn’t around.

“We’ll say it was an honest mistake,” Harwin said, shrugging.

As the weeks went by and no one resembled Arya close enough to make the plot believable, the guilt weighing down his shoulders lightened. If no one could be found, they could convince Lem to put an end to this foolish plan. They would not have to go through with it at all.

Lem seemed to have been getting more desperate, too, as the weeks went by. He barely seemed to look at the girls he sent back towards the inn. He’d put out word that he was looking for Arya Stark, had talked to all of the captains and vendors in the docks. He promised splitting the reward, and that had gotten quite a few bites. Anyone could be Arya Stark if they were going to get paid for it.

Some were far too young, barely flowered. Some were far too old—there had even been a girl of thirty, older even than the Dragon Prince Jon who governed the North.

“She’d be about twenty,” Gendry said to Lem one evening. “Stop wasting our time.”

Lem held up his hands. “Alright, alright. Calm down. We’ll find her.”

Girl after girl, none of them Arya, none of them looking a thing like her.

\--

Everything about the port was wrong. The houses did not look right. The air did not smell right. Even the weather did not _feel_ right. But eight years ago, Westeros had been on the brink of a long winter, and now it was midsummer.

She crossed her arms and wandered the streets, waiting for something to ring a bell.

 _Stupid waif_ , she thought. _Send me away, and can’t bloody tell me who I am?_

Had they thought after eight years of telling her to be no one, she could suddenly be someone again?

There were the wolf dreams, though. They came to her every night now. And she _had_ remembered what those grey sigils meant.

House Frey.

The wolf of her dreams would rip out their throats, their entrails, their hot blood would drizzle over the side of her mouth and she would feel— _the wolf_ would feel—satisfied, justified. Vengeance.

She was not of House Frey.

Perhaps it might be wise to enter one of the taverns and see what she could find out about House Frey, see if they were a local lord, see who their enemies were.

For some reason, she kept walking instead, pushing through the crowd (accidentally walking into a large, dark-haired man, who cursed and scowled when he looked at her), past the houses and the inns, with their warm yellow light and the smell of dinner, towards the hope that something might trigger her memory.

She wanted, desperately, for some memory to stir. But as she looked about the town, there was nothing. She tried not to let this sink her spirits. She could smell the fresh pine on some of the homes, knew the town was young. Something had happened here, something bad. It was common knowledge that the war in Westeros had destroyed much of the countryside. In the Game of Thrones, it was the small folk who bled the most. It wasn’t too surprising a port city had not escaped the brunt of the violence.

Then she glanced at the hill.

Silhouetted against the purple sky was a small castle. It was barely more than a holdfast, but looking, she could almost hear bells ringing in her head.

Yes, that castle, that was a castle she knew.

Perhaps she had been there.

So she made her way up the path as the crowd dissipated and people scrambled home in the waning daylight. It didn’t take her long to reach it. Up close, she felt the familiar bubble of hope burst into disappointment.

A small torch flickered at the gate, where two sentries stood.

“Evenin’ miss,” one of them said. “What business do you have here?”

“Is the Lord present?” she asked, feeling uncertain. The castle seemed mostly dark.

The sentries both laughed. “He hasn’t been present for nigh on three moons,” the second one said.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Not from here then?” the first sentry asked.

“No,” she said.

“What do you need?”

She bit her lip as she thought this over. She didn’t know what she had expected, really, she had just walked towards the castle because she recognized it. Now she cursed her stupidity.

“If you’re looking for Lem,” the second one said when she didn’t answer, “you can find him at the inn at the bottom of the hill. You’ll know him right away—he wears a yellow cloak.”

She muttered a thank you, but continued on past the castle. She didn’t know who Lem was or why she might be looking for him. Perhaps the sentry had confused her with someone else.

On the edge of town, she stared up the river towards the trees. The wind whispered through the branches, carried the faint howl of a wolf. She thought she it was too early in the evening for wolves, thought she might be imagining things now, but then she wondered, _Is it my wolf?_

The river was wide, and she stared up the length of it, at the flowing blue water. _This_ , she thought, with a rush of excitement not unlike the rush of the water at her feet. _This is familiar_.

A child had followed this river—the Trident—for six days before she reached Saltpans and sold her horse. Craven. But that was the edge of her memory, that was as far as it would go. She would need to retrace her steps, travel north upriver, and look for the next clue, the next stepping stone to her past.

She started then, and was only several steps upriver when a voice called out behind her.

“Miss! Miss!”

She spun around to see one of the sentries from the castle striding towards her.

“You mustn’t go out there now,” he said, slowing when he reached her.

She glanced over her shoulder at the woods.

“Wolves,” he said, answering the unasked question. “The forest is no place for a young woman such as yourself.”

She looked back at him, not sure whether she was annoyed or amused by his assumption of her helplessness.

“If you’re looking to travel north,” he said insistently, “then you ought to find Lem.”

She arched an eyebrow. So Lem was some sort of guide. Perhaps that would be useful after all.

She could have found her own way, but she knew little of Westeros, other than that it had been torn apart by civil war, and something about dragons. She was no one, she knew how to slip through the shadows unnoticed, how to avoid trouble. But it occurred to her that perhaps some company might be able to tell her more about the land—about House Frey, maybe, and who might want them dead. And a guide might not be such a terrible idea.

She followed the sentry back towards town, shivering slightly in the night wind. It was summer still, but the breeze off the ocean was brisk. She didn’t mind. There was something comforting about the chill. She closed her eyes again, and tried to feel it. A biting cold, flushed cheeks. The stinging numbness in her fingers after spending the whole day outside in the snow. But it had been summer, the time before she left Westeros. Winter had not come until she left. There was only one place where it was cold all year round.

 _I’m from the North_.

Direwolves. Needlepoint pictures. Visions, memories, things she almost remembered hovered at the fraying edges of her memories, swirling like shadows in a winter storm.

She continued down the path, lost in thought, vague images coming to mind. A cold wind, a promise of winter. A forest covered in snow. The clacking of the swords that she had heard on the ship, it reminded her of something else, of running through forest with a boy, just a little younger than her. A white tree with red leaves.

“Here we are, then,” the sentry said.

They had reached the inn, all too soon, and when she came upon the doors and the yellow light spilling from the windows, the memories that seemed just at her fingertips vanished.

And suddenly she felt exhausted. The voyage across the Narrow Sea had taken a little longer than expected, after they ran into a small but hindering storm. Now she was in Saltpans, with only the faintest hint of where to go— _north_ , could there be any vaguer direction than one of the four points on a compass?—and the road ahead seemed to grow in her mind’s eye, the path stretching out into the horizon, into the shadows of the approaching night. She still had no idea where that road might end.

Maybe the waif had been wrong. Maybe there was no family waiting for her.

With a sigh, she pulled open the door and stepped into the tavern.

\--

Gendry happened to look up as she walked through the door. Petite. Dark hair. Gray eyes. She strode towards the bar like she owned it, like she was a lady.

 _It’s not Arya. Arya is dead_ , he told himself. When he looked at her again, he could see that it was true. Her face was like a mask, expressionless, cold, and her eyes … Well, Arya’s had been bright, lit by a fire within, even when she was angry. Especially when she was angry.

Still, he could not let Harwin or Lem see her.

He could not suffer through the long journey north with some stranger pretending to be Arya.

He could not do that to the Starks.

Hadn’t they all suffered enough?

He had to get her out of here.

\--

She found a seat in the corner, where she could watch the door easily but not be disturbed by other patrons. The bartender had told her Lem might be awhile, as he had rounds to do, so she had ordered a beer and sat down to wait.

She’d never had a drink during her time with the Faceless Men. It simply wasn’t allowed. All of the acolytes she had trained with had deplored of beer, and wine, and spirits, saying it made men’s minds fuzzy, made them do things they regretted later. She’d seen men and women act stupid around each other, and she had wondered with scorn what had attracted them so much to alcohol that it was worth the sacrifice of their senses.

She was surprised to learn it tasted terrible.

She sipped the beer anyways, watching the tavern slowly fill around her. The main hall was small, but cozy, not surprising for a small port such as this. It was intimate and crowded, with a swarm of people too eager to wait for the waitress crowded around the bar.

As she drained the last of her cup, she felt the warmth rush through her limbs and a sudden surge of energy. And so she ordered another one.

The kindly man wasn’t here after all. Alashara wasn’t here to frown at her disapprovingly. Izembaro wouldn’t scoff and shake his head if she kept drinking.

She was halfway through her third when she finally noticed the hall had filled completely, that she was jammed elbow to elbow with the men next to her, and suddenly she felt stiflingly warm.

 _What am I even doing?_ She thought to herself. _Has my training these past eight years meant nothing? Suddenly I am free of the House of Black and White, and I'm guzzling beer like a drunk? I am a fool. I know nothing. I am wasting my time here. I ought to just get on the next boat, go back to Braavos, convince the Faceless Men to take me back_.

But something made her pause.

There had been something in the way she had phrased it in her mind. _I am free_ , she had thought to herself.

Had she felt like a prisoner this whole time? Hadn’t she chosen to be an acolyte?

“Papa!”

She turned to her left, saw a young boy no older than ten hovering at the edge of the table, looking up at his father with large brown eyes.

“Joren, I told you to go find your mother,” said a man at the end of the table. Cat could not see his face.

“Mama said to tell you she wants you to come home,” the child said meekly, looking down at the ground.

“I’m busy,” the man said. “Go away.”

“The landlord came around,” the boy said quickly, “and he’s looking for…”

“What happened to the coin I left this morning?” the man said, and Cat could see the edge of his face turn red.

“She needed it to buy food, and…”

“Don’t lie to me, boy!” he shouted, rising to his feet. The boy cowered before his father. Cat tried to look away, tried to drown out the shouts and the sniffling. “I know there was enough for food and rent. What did she spend it on? What did that bloody wench spend it on?”

“J-just food, papa…”

“I told you not to lie,” the man shouted.

The Faceless Men had told her over and over throughout the years. _We do not judge_. They only gave the gift when it was paid for. They did not give it voluntarily. They did not intervene in the lives of men unless it had been requested. She had not listened, over and over, throughout the years. She would not intervene, she was not that disobedient. But she would only give the gift after she had learned the back story, after she had watched from the shadows long enough to know that this man or woman deserved what she would give them. She would wait, would not tell Izembaro or Alashara her plan until she knew that one thing. It was the only way she had clung to her morality.

Well, she was no longer with the Faceless Men. _I am free_ , she thought, reminding herself of the slip of tongue she’d made earlier.

So mere seconds after the man’s hand had slapped across his child’s face, she was there, the shadow with the knife pointed right at his throat, and it did not matter if she made a scene or who saw her because she was free and if she was free, she could serve out justice how _she_ saw fit.

\--

Gendry had been watching the scene unfold from across the tavern. His eyes had not left her since she entered, and he had watched her fill up with beer, he had watched her stew with rage, and he had seen—though no one else had—how she flitted through the crowded bar like a shadow.

“Seven hells.”

A scene would be the end of it. A scene would draw Lem’s attention and he would be finished. So he rushed across the tavern, feeling clumsy after watching her silent, graceful sneaking. He’d moved so quickly he didn’t even know what he planned on doing, how he might prevent the whole bar from turning to look, how he would ease the girl’s rage and get her to back down.

\--

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the broad-shouldered man barreling across the tavern like a lumbering bull. It might have been the same one she’d collided with earlier. She’d only glanced towards him for a second, but it had been enough, and someone else grabbed her from behind, whisking her away from the violent father.

She wanted to plunge her dagger in him. She wanted to cut away his angry red face, teach him what it was like to feel pain there. She squirmed against her captors hands, working to plant her feet on the ground, to get some leverage she could use against him.

“Let her go,” someone said. Voices shouted back and forth around her, but she couldn’t see any of the faces.

“Did you see what she…”

“Let her go. You know how much Hadrin hates scenes. Scares off the customers.”

“She started it.”

“I know, I saw everything. I’ll take care of her.”

The hands loosened their grip and she wriggled free, both daggers in hand now and she faced the man who would “take care of her.”

When she looked at him, that rage, an all too familiar emotion since she’d been rejected from the House of Black and White, rose up within her. It _was_ the same man as before, with the messy fringe covering his eyes.

And that was all it took. Eight years of suppressing her anger. Eight years of keeping a calm face when inside she was boiling.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” she said, surprised at how venomous she sounded. It was Cat speaking, not no one. No one never caused scenes. No one slipped into the shadows of taverns and watched and learned and never spoke.

He looked down at her, the same scowl on his face that she’d seen before, and this time she saw cold blue eyes. And she froze.

“Come on then,” he said, grabbing her wrists and forcing her daggers from her hands with a speed that surprised her, given his size. But he’d have never been able to disarm her if it hadn’t been for those eyes.

She had seen them before. In her wolf dreams.

 _He was the reason Alashara sent me home_ , she realized, and the anger flared within her anew.

“Who do we have here?” a voice behind her said. “Is this the girl, then?”

She wrenched her arms from the black-haired man’s hands and whirled around to see a middle-aged man standing before her. His yellow cloak almost reached the floor, and he regarded her with deep set eyes. It was the man the sentries had spoken of: Lem.

\--

“Well done, then.”

Gendry swallowed back a groan. The girl’s eyes darted back and forth between them, and he saw recognition in her eyes when she saw Lem’s yellow cloak. So it hadn’t mattered what he did after all. Lem had already found her.

“Lem,” said Harwin, coming up behind the yellow-cloaked man, “we told you, no girls after sunset…”  He trailed off as she turned to look at him.

“Seven hells,” he said. This was it. This was the sound of his world ending.

“The resemblance _is_ uncanny…”

“No, no, no,” Gendry said.

“I hate to interrupt,” said the girl, a scowl cutting its way across her pretty face, “But if someone could _kindly_ inform me as to what…”

“She doesn’t know?” Harwin asked, looking back and forth between Gendry and Lem.

“I thought you and Gendry picked her out…” Lem said.

Gendry shook his head. “Enough. You think any girl who’s shorter than Harwin and has dark hair looks like her.”

“No, Gendry,” Harwin said. “ _Look_ at her.”

\--

The black-haired man named Gendry looked her over again, pausing at her face, searching her eyes. She wanted to yell at him again, but as his blue eyes examined her, she felt herself squirming instead.

He looked quickly back at the third man.

Cat snapped out of her paralysis. “Well if you’re _quite_ done staring,” she said, making sure to glare around at all of them, “I’ll be on my way.” _Creeps,_ she thought, suppressing her strong desire to punch one of them. She could find her own way north, she decided.

“Wait,” said Lem, rushing after her. “Arya!”

She paused at the door. Did this man know her after all? Could she be so lucky?

He caught up to her and looked her over again.

“Arya?” he repeated.

She crossed her arms. “Do I know you?”

He squinted his eyes. “You tell me. We’re looking for a young girl, dark hair, gray eyes, small form. She ran away eight years ago, left from this very port. Her name was Arya Stark.”

Cat chewed her lip. “Don’t know anyone named Arya,” she said after a moment.

“What’s your name?”

“Some call me Cat.” She shrugged.

He arched his eyebrow. “You’re the very likeness of her,” he said quickly. “You could _be_ Arya, you know. If you wanted.”

She cocked her head at that. “If I wanted?”

“Just sayin’. People would think you were her, if they didn’t know better.”

 _I could be anyone I wanted,_ she thought. _You don’t even know the half of it_.

“Listen. I don’t know what you’re doing here in Saltpans, but I think you could help us. Have a drink, at least. Hear me out.”

Cat looked back towards the bar, where the man named Gendry was glaring at her with no shame.

“Don’t worry about him,” Lem said quickly. “He’s always grumpy.”

 --

If he’d had any feelings resembling happiness at the knowledge they were soon finished with Lem’s bloody con, they had vanished completely the moment he’d ran into the girl near the docks.

Small. Dark hair. Gray eyes. The stubborn way she looked at him.

He had prayed to all the gods he had ever known that Lem would not find her.

But of course, in a tiny town like Saltpans, such a hope was no more than a fool’s wish.

He had never once assumed for a moment that the girl actually _was_ Arya, though out of all the women he’d seen in the past month—seven hells—she looked the part. _Arya Stark is dead_ , he repeated to himself. He’d said it over and over, like a prayer, and he wasn’t going to allow himself any hope that his prayer had been wrong.

 _He’s bringing her over here!_ He eyed the hall that led to the rooms. Maybe he could excuse himself early.

“Gendry,” Harwin was saying, “do you think … do you think that could actually _be_ Arya?”

Gendry refused to look at her.

“Just look at the way she’s glaring at you.”

He couldn’t refuse a quick glance then, and sure enough, the look she sent him could have set fire to his clothes. As she no doubt was willing it to. He returned the look before turning back to Harwin.

“This will only lead to trouble,” he muttered.

“Have a seat,” Lem said as they reached the table. The girl sat next to Harwin, cattycorner to Gendry, and he was thankful at least that she was as far away from him as was possible.

“This is Cat,” Lem continued. “She’s looking for passage north.”

“North, eh?” said Harwin, with a glance towards Gendry. “What business do you have there?”

“Don’t know,” Cat muttered with a shrug.

“She doesn’t remember who she is,” Lem said, pointedly.

Gendry snorted. “How do you not remember who you are?”

The girl fixed with him another glare. “How does a man not mind his own business?”

“Cat,” said Harwin, ignoring Gendry, “my name is Harwin, and the grouch here is Gendry. For the past several moons, we’ve been looking for a young girl named Arya Stark. She disappeared eight years ago, and she was last seen here in Saltpans. They say she left for Braavos.”

Something clicked in the girl’s mind then, and for a brief second even Gendry thought, _Maybe…_ but he extinguished the hope a moment later.

“Cat’s just come off the boat from Braavos,” Lem said, stating the obvious. Gendry did not know where he found the self control not to punch him in the face.

“You might have heard of Arya,” Harwin continued. “She was the youngest daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, the youngest sister of the King in the North, Robb Stark, the cousin of Lord Jon Targaryen, Lord of Winterfell…”

“You think _I’m_ a princess?” the girl said, her calm mask dissolving into disbelief.

“Not a princess,” Gendry said, rolling his eyes. “But a lady, yes.”

The girl chewed her lip.

\--

It wasn’t possible that she was this missing girl they were looking for. Surely she’d remember if she had been the daughter of a lord. She had no memory of flowing dresses or fancy meals or the fake pleasantries of court. She’d been wearing breeches as far back as she could remember.

But... maybe she could travel with these men for just a little bit, learn what she could of Westeros. Her journey would be much easier with a party, after all.

Besides, she had noticed from the beginning something suspicious about the way Lem talked. “You could _be_ Arya,” he had said. She knew what he hadn’t said. _We’re not looking for Arya, we’re looking for a girl who looks like her_.

Con men. She’d heard of this sort of thing before—mummers trying to pass themselves off as missing children for gold.

 _I’ll play your game_ , she decided, looking around the table. _But only so far as it suits me_. 


	5. In the Dark of the Night

 

East of Winterfell, far across the Sheepshead Hills, in the small folds of land between the White Knife and the Last River, laid the broken remains of an angry castle. Open-jawed as it glared up into the night, the castle pointed its teeth-like merlons towards the gods that had forsaken this place, and though the stone crumbled, it seemed as though the castle had just enough left to perch precariously on the icy banks of the Weeping Water and wait for one last prey.

In most places, the stones had come loose, had tumbled and crumbled on the ground below. In the tower that hovered over the river—the only tower not at least partially melted by dragon fire—a small skeleton of a woman sat, wrapped in blankets, and tried to pretend she was in another place and another time. She did not resemble the woman she had once been. She would never be recognized again.

Her white hair fell limply across her shoulders and wrinkles around her mouth from constant frowning gave her a look much older than she really was.

There was no light burning in that tower, but she gazed out across the river, watched the white light of the moon dance over the Weeping Water. She had never wept tears of her own, but over the years she’d come to think of the river as the tears she could not weep for herself. She stared down from her seat by the window, at the sharp rocks that jutted up out of the rapids, and found the spot where the water pooled just below her window.

She could jump. If she didn’t hit the rocks, she could drown in that pool right there, drown in her own tears and maybe that would be an appropriate death.

With a scowl, she stood and paced away from the window, away from that pathetic wretch who sat and had nothing to live for. It disgusted her. Who was she? She did not even recognize herself. When she stared in the mirror, the lion staring back had no mane of gold, no sharp teeth to bare, no claws to wrench into her enemies. A pathetic wretch indeed.

\--

In the bowels of the castle, where the moonlight could not reach the rusting instruments of torture that even today held the castle in high infamy, a man hunched over the letters that had arrived by crow in the morning. His candle, already waxing low, lit only the small desk in front of him.

He wondered if he even ought to bother telling her. The news seemed useless to him, yet here he sat, reading both letters hours later, wondering if there was something more to this, something that might set them free from this rusted old trap in the north.

It had seemed a clever idea, all those years ago. In the context of the chaos, he had convinced himself their plan would work, that it was the only solution. The truth they had both refused to acknowledge: there was no solution.

Even now, he could not discern what they really ought to have done.

Despite the trial, the damage had been done, and roses bloomed, their prickly thorns pushing the lion out of her den. He had been dismissed as the Master of Whispers, but even then he already knew the quiet battle for the Red Keep was not the battle that mattered. The dragons were coming, their shadows etched on the map of Westeros, and the fire they would bring would inspire more terror even than the green fire of the Battle of the Blackwater. The War of the Five Kings would be a footnote in history.

 “Let the Tyrells have King’s Landing,” he had argued. “Another King is coming.”

“I will not abandon my son,” she had said, clinging to the last shred of pride she could muster.

“Tommen is already dead,” he had said calmly. “You put him on the throne and that is where he shall perish. But your _daughter_ could be saved…”

He could have fled King’s Landing on his own; he had no particular loyalty to the lions, except that they owed him a vast amount of wealth. She had promised boat loads of gold, for the magic that had eventually saved her life, and he would not let the lion weasel out of that. Didn’t mean he had to tell the truth to her, though.

He had promised her Dorne, but the ship that left port just a day before the Scourge of King’s Landing had taken them to his strongest allies, the Boltons. She had screamed and raved and threatened to claw his eyes out, but Ser Robert was with them (of course), and it was _he_ who controlled Ser Robert, not her. And in the end, in truth, she had no place to go. Dorne would certainly not welcome her, even if Myrcella was still alive (that was something the whispers and crows had not told him). Westeros had run out the lions. There was nowhere else for them to go.

When they finally arrived at the castle, they found it burnt and abandoned. Whoever had stayed behind when the Boltons claimed Winterfell had fled when the dragons descended upon the castle during the War of Ice and Fire. No one wanted to return to the house of screams and death. Only one tower had been left standing, and the dungeons had somehow remained untouched. They settled in as best they could as the winter snows collected around them, and they were stuck in the giant trap of the Dreadfort.

\--

Other women in her circumstance might have considered it lucky they had managed to scrounge up a handful of people in their service. A cook, two guards, and a feeble young maid whom they’d found in the dungeons—the only people who’d been left at the Dreadfort when they first arrived. She did not know what Qyburn did to keep them from leaving. She did not ask those questions.

Her stomach almost turned when she saw yet again their dinner was comprised of rabbit meat and turnips. She regretted that she had not thrown herself from the tower. But then she hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours, and instead of turning her stomach rumbled and she knew she had to eat.

She did not see Qyburn much, usually only at dinner, when he would report to her news of the kingdom she had once ruled, and they would try to determine if there was a place for them, if they could find a way to insert themselves somewhere and leave this miserable castle.

If only she knew where Jaime was. She thought of him often these days. He had not come to her aid in King’s Landing, but Qyburn had told her he’d disappeared in the Riverlands after treating with the men at Riverrun. She had no doubt her twin was still alive, somewhere—she would not believe that he had joined their children in the afterlife, she simply _could not_. They had come into this world together; they would go out together, after all. But where was he hiding? If they could hide together, it may not be so terrible.

She swallowed down the last of the hare with the last sip of wine. There was only enough wine for a cup a day; that was what they’d had to do to preserve the stash the Boltons had kept in the cellar. Though the late Lord Bolton had not cared for the drink, he’d kept enough for his household. She really didn’t know how she’d manage to live in this hell for so long with only a cup of wine a day, but here she was, standing in the grim hall of the Dreadfort.

She was about to retreat to her tower when Qyburn finally arrived. He was always late to dinner, but to appear after she’d finished the last of the meal was rare. Perhaps there was news of import after all.

When he stepped into the small circle of light around the table, she saw the grim look on his face and knew there would be news, but it would not be good.

“My lady,” he said, bowing, his frail body shaking at the effort.

“Qyburn,” she said, pulling her blankets around her.

He sat down at the opposite end of the table. “News from my contacts in White Harbor,” he said, and she narrowed her eyes. She was always suspicious about these contacts of his. The former Master of Whispers knew men all across the land, but none who could come to their aid. Winter had gone, after all, what stopped them from coming? With more men, maybe she could become the lady of the Dreadfort, she could rule on her own and they would see how cruel a mother could be when her cubs were gone. Men would quake at her name, more than they had ever quaked from the name of Bolton, and she would show them. _Terror’s the least I can do_.

“Go on,” she said, trying her goblet again on the off-chance a small puddle of wine had survived at the bottom of the cup. She was disappointed.

He hesitated. He was always careful with his words. She’d be angry no matter what he said.

Finally, “My lady, there is good news, and there is bad news. Which would your grace prefer to hear first?”

So there was good news after all. She licked her lips in a last attempt to taste the wine that had just moments ago crossed them. “The good news,” she said.

He nodded. “There is word of your brother.”

Her heart leapt in her chest in a way she did not think possible since she’d grown out of girlhood. “Oh?” she said, keeping her face a mask.

“He is at Winterfell.”

At this, her heart fell. If this was the good news, then what would be the bad? “He is prisoner, then?”

“No, your grace.”

“No?”

“He is captain of the guards.”

“What!”  The fury exploded from her mouth before she could think to hold it back, but really etiquette hardly mattered here. Her twin, captain of the guards at Winterfell? Surely it was a jest!

Yes—of course it was a jest. “Of course,” she said, settling back in her chair, forcing a laugh, “and this is the Red Keep. Truly, where is my brother?”

“It is no jest, your grace. Ser Jaime is the captain of the guard in Winterfell, has been for years, apparently. My contact did not know how he came to be there.”

She stood so forcefully that her chair fell behind her. Her own brother, alive, well, in the company of their enemies! Did he not think to look for her? Did he not mourn her loss? Why had he not shown up in King’s Landing to defend her at the trial?

“Your grace—do not be alarmed. He likely believes you died long ago, in the Scourge of King’s Landing.”

She could not accept sympathy from Qyburn of all people, so she fixed him a glare. “I asked for the good news first, did I not? Clearly you’ve given me the bad news first anyways. Tell me your good news now.”

“Your grace, I didn’t…that _was_ the…” He sighed, the fight draining from his drooping eyes. “Arya Stark has returned to Westeros.”

She narrowed her eyes. _The Last Stark_. The Stark that had slipped between her fingers, that had somehow escaped King’s Landing.

“She arrived the other day in Saltpans, on a ship from Braavos.”

Braavos. So her dancing instructor had been behind it after all. Had managed to sneak her to safety before the guards had arrived. Slippery, that’s what the Braavosi were. She had to admire the man’s willpower though. Not once during his sessions with Qyburn had the man even hinted that he’d known where the little thing had ran off to.

But what did this news have to do with her?

“There’s a reward for her return,” Qyburn said, finishing his last bit of news with a shrug before launching into his meal.

She leaned back in her chair and thought over all of it.

Jaime in Winterfell. Arya Stark in Westeros. A reward for her safe return.

Jaime had weaseled his way into the Starks’ good graces. With his charm… perhaps that was not too surprising. How he had managed to suffer through living with the Starks, on the other hand, she could not fathom. But if there was one truth she had been denying for too long, it was that there were few places left in the world for Lannisters. With Tyrion as the lord of Casterly Rock—she shuddered to imagine him in her father’s seat, she could see Tywin rolling in his grave at the injustice of it—she could not very well look there for safety. Winterfell may be hard and cold and miserable, but nothing could be half as bad as this death trap.

“Qyburn,” she said sharply, and he looked up at her with a bit of meat hanging from his mouth. He gulped it down before she continued. “Your contacts in the Riverlands. What could they do for us?”

\--

Gendry awoke to the sound of the crackling fire, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He sat up and looked to Harwin, who had been keeping the midnight watch.

“Wolves,” he said softly, in response to Gendry’s raised brow.

Gendry nodded and leaned back against the fallen tree trunk they’d built their camp in front of. The branches overhead obscured most of the sky, but he could sense it was already deep into the night, hours after midnight, and time for Harwin’s watch to end and his to begin. _The hour of the wolf_.

The wolves had been following them since the Inn at the Crossroads. It wasn’t like he’d never heard wolves at night before, but there was something eerily different this time. The howls always came from the south. Always the same distance away. Always the same howls. Yes, the wolves were following them, he was sure of it.

And Cat.

She’d been different since the Inn at the Crossroads, too. Angry during the day, and even angrier at night. Even now, she muttered and twitched in her sleep, clutching her misshapen bag close to her chest. He hated having to wake her. She’d jolt violently, her eyes cloudy with dreams, and her hand would grip tightly around the dagger she kept in hand as she slept.

He shivered and looked towards Harwin.

“She’s getting worse,” he said, nodding towards Cat.

Harwin shrugged as he found a more comfortable spot to rest beneath the fallen log. “We’re all a mess, after the war. Don’t suppose there’s some reason she forgot who she is? We’ve all got our own nightmares.”

Gendry sighed, but what could he say to that? After all the things he’d seen during his time with the Brotherhood, the things he’d done for Lady Stoneheart… Harwin was right, of course.

Didn’t make her any less strange, though.

He tried not to think about her as the night wore on. The howling faded, the moon sank low, and the darkness pressed in on them. Every hour or so, as best he could tell, he got up and stoked the fire. There had been times, long ago, when it would have been pure madness to keep a fire going during the night. But it was peacetime, and the river was chilly, and they could afford this small luxury. And it did help keep the wolves at bay.

Cat twitched violently in her sleep, and he thought maybe he ought to wake her up, but then thought better of it. That was a lesson he’d learned the hard way. The bruise around his right eye was still fading and—well he’d never admit it, but it was still a little tender.

He tried not to think of her—but then, there she was, the strange girl that had pretty much ruined the small bit of peace he had only finally managed to keep for himself. Saltpans was no paradise, but what could a poor man like him expect? He’d been content enough of his misery.

And he didn’t trust her for a moment. Not after he’d seen her slink through the shadows in the blink of an eye and pull a dagger on a stranger without hesitating. Not after she’d glared at him across the hall. Not after her short speech when she finally agreed to go with them.

“Maybe I’m Arya, maybe I’m not,” she had said, glancing around at the table. “I’m going north anyways, so I might as well travel with you. My one condition,” here she had paused, “is that you answer all my questions… and ask none of your own.”

What did she have to hide? A girl from Braavos, travelling on her own, claiming not to remember half her life? It didn’t sit right with him at all.

\--

A sharp pain. In her side. She woke in a second, her dagger already in hand.

Gendry stepped back and dropped the stick. “Sun’s up. Time to move.”

She rolled her eyes and sheathed her dagger.

The morning air was cool and fresh on her face. Gendry had already stomped out the fire. With a sigh, she rolled up the thin blanket she’d obtained in Saltpans and stuffed it into her bag. It was getting particularly lumpy, unaided by the awkward way Needle had been shuffled to the bottom.

She had briefly considered wearing Needle on her hip back in Saltpans, but it turned out Gendry was actually a decent smith, and he’d just so happened to have a small collection of unsold swords gathering dust in his smithy. Apparently there wasn’t much demand for swords in Saltpans, especially during peace time. She’d picked out a light rapier, with a simple yet elegant hilt. It was modest-looking (she’d held beautiful swords in the Free Cities, ones made by master smiths from Qohor, with sweeping hilts that twisted gracefully over her hand), but of all the swords she’d used—she had to grudgingly admit—the balance was nigh on perfect. Not that she planned on telling him anytime soon.

Harwin and Lem had been polite enough, eager to answer her questions, explain the current political state of Westeros, and, of course, “remind” her of any detail of Arya Stark’s life that they could remember. Despite their efforts, she’d learned little and remembered less.

Cat did not find the Riverlands to be particularly accommodating. Though much of it seemed familiar, it did not inspire memories that were useful, that would provide hints of who she was or where she had come from. They’d traveled up the length of the Trident, to the Crossroads at the Inn—where Harwin had described the corpses Arya Stark and the Hound had left in their wake, inspiring no memories whatsoever—and then following the Green Fork towards the Twins.

Her companions seemed to think she might actually be this lost Northern princess. Harwin had believed it the moment she agreed that night in the tavern; he was so assured that she was Arya Stark that if she wasn’t careful she might start believing it herself. Lem didn’t care one way or the other whether she was Arya, but talked to her like she was.

But Gendry.

She heard Lem call him The Bull early on and knew the nickname fit perfectly. He wouldn’t talk to her if he didn’t have to, spent most of his time in silence, and glared at her any time he looked her way.

“What’s the matter with him?” she asked Lem once.

The yellow cloak wrinkled around his shoulders as he shrugged. “Can’t be sure, milady. He’s always been like this since I can remember.”

She could tell when a man lied, and she knew there was more than he let on, but he’d walked away so quickly she didn’t bother pushing the subject. 

In the meantime, she had her wolf dreams. Each day in the Riverlands, they had become more and more vivid. If the Riverlands looked at all familiar to her, it might simply have been because of the dreams. The wolf could cover vast distances in a day, had covered the entirety of the Riverlands in its lifetime, and knew the way of the land the way Cat knew the twisting tunnels below the House of Black and White. The wolf owned that land, she was the master and her pack obeyed, and when men dared cross a line, she would show them they could not tame her.

The wolf was vicious, tearing across the countryside, killing the ones in the gray surcoats, the Freys. There were so many of them, there was always someone to kill.

She had learned a trick, too. She would sometimes drift off to sleep on her horse, as they travelled midday, and she’d slip into the wolf skin as easily as slipping on her clothes. She could almost willfully close her eyes and be there. It had happened to her occasionally, during her time with the Faceless Men, where she would gain the upper hand by seeing with the eyes of a cat, or bird, or mouse. She hadn’t questioned then how she could do it, for she’d done it for so long, but the wolf was the reason for it, she knew it now.

She also knew the wolf was travelling north, that it was in the Riverlands just as she was, but they never came upon the wolf of her dreams in person. That it _was_ a real direwolf, that it really existed, she did not doubt. The dreams felt as real as waking life.

She did not, however, tell any of her companions about the dreams. That was none of their business, after all. And they had done well to mind their bargain: no questions.

Still, they might have started to suspect something was a little off when she slipped into the wolf skin during dinner once. She’d just drifted off, the warmth of the fire luring her to an early sleep, when a shadow fell before her and someone shook her shoulders. Her entire time at the House of Black and White, she’d been a light sleeper. It came in handy. So when she’d been startled, her body had reacted as though threatened.

She was not sorry when she looked on the black mark framing Gendry’s left eye.

In fact, it almost made her laugh. And it _had_ made Lem laugh.

Lem and Harwin were pleasant enough, if Gendry wasn’t.

“I suspect we’ll be at the Twins in about a day,” Harwin said midday when they paused to stop for lunch.

“That’s where the Freys live,” Cat said, only half-questioning.

“Where they used to live,” Harwin corrected. “Queen Daenerys stripped them of their title and rewarded it to some lesser noble that fought for her during the war.”

“Why did she do that?” She thought of the hatred the wolf felt for the Freys, the way it anticipated the hunt for their bannerman, the way it relished the taste of their blood.

“Everyone in the Riverlands has some reason or other to hate the Freys…”

She kept her face a mask, but inside her spirits fell. She’d been so sure the wolf’s hatred for the men in the gray cloaks would manifest some clue regarding her true identity.

“…but none so much as the Starks. The Lord of Winterfell may be the Dragon Queen’s nephew, but he’s a Stark if I ever knew one. It’s no accident the Freys lost the Twins,” Harwin continued. He told the whole story, then, of how Robb Stark had fostered an alliance with the Freys, promising to marry one of their daughters, breaking that promise when he married Jeyne Westerling. And he told, very carefully, the story of the Red Wedding, watching Cat’s face intently the whole time he did.

“The Freys betrayed the North that day,” Harwin said solemnly. “And the North remembers.”

That had given her something to chew on.

\--

If Gendry thought the worst of their fears were hunting wolves, he wasn’t entirely wrong. It was true that under Daenerys Targaryen’s rule, travelers could expect safe passage along the road with—albeit limited—confidence. For the most part, the Queen’s men had also done well to keep the wolf population relatively low. Bandit groups like the Brotherhood Without Banners had dissolved once certain parties left the Red Keep. In general, it was widely agreed that a certain balance had finally fallen upon the world, like a scale too long tipped to one side finally teetering back to evenness.

However.

Peace—that star ever within reach and yet ever without—is not always a prize that can be shared.

Perhaps years of war had lowered the standard for “safe.” Perhaps Gendry—perhaps all of them—had been living too long in one place. Perhaps they had too willingly believed the innkeepers’ assurances that the road was safe for travel.

But while Gendry looked over his shoulder, worried of being caught in a sharp-toothed, fur-covered trap, another waited just several miles up the road.

They had scoped out the area well, the band of ten that now sat sharpening their swords by the light of the setting sun. The dull red light barely glinted off the dingy metal of their swords and—for the few wearing it—armor.

The chosen spot had a decent vantage point. An elevated ledge just yards from the road, the spot granted a generous view of a good half-mile of road south yet could not be seen from the road at all. The thick trees hid what their elevation did not, but did not limit their own sightlines.

If they weren’t careful, however, their noise might betray all their efforts to hide.

 “’ow much of a reward did ‘e say, then?” asked one of the men, following it with a long sniff and wiping his nose on his gray sleeve.

“What’s it matter ‘ow much? Anythin’ will do.”

“Can ‘e be trusted, is what I’d like to know,” said another.

“I’d just like a meal in me belly.”

Another pointed to his chest and pinched the faded blue towers stitched to the front of his gray coat. “Do you think ‘e’s goin’ ta bring me back armor?”

“Quiet, all of you!”

It is often stunning, the effect of a quiet but stern whisper that belongs to the right voice.

They all turned up to see the eleventh member of their party hovering over them from the highest point on the ledge.

Black Walder was one of the few Freys remembered in the Riverlands. When Daenerys Targaryen had granted the Twins to some second-tier noble, he had practically stormed King’s Landing like a shadow of black seen only out of the corner of the eye after having passed too quickly. He had burst into the hall and demanded his inheritance—for having survived his brothers, Petyr, who had been slain by the Brotherhood Without Banners, and Edwyn, who had died in the chaos following the Scourge of King’s Landing; for having survived his father, Ser Ryman, and his grandfather, Ser Stevron; and ultimately for having survived one of the last Freys to perish, Ser Walder himself, Black Walder had finally become the heir to the Twins.

It was his at last, it was his birthright, and it had been taken from him just when he had been ready to receive it. He hadn’t slain his way to the seat of the Lord of the Crossing, as all his brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews had feared he would. It was _his_ , by right, justly and truthfully. And he could not see it go to someone lesser.

The Dragon Queen—foolish, petulant, aggravating child that she was—had had the audacity to laugh at him!

When she had quieted, her eyes flashed like the fire from her dragons’ mouths. “He who denies and mocks _guest right_ shall not speak to me of rights.”

He had had to flee then, cowardly and disgusting though it was. He had fled the room as her guards prepared to take him and try him for his father’s crimes.

Crimes! Why not try the Starks, for their uprising against the crown? For their inability to uphold their word?

It was laughable, really, the state of the kingdom. A bastard as lord of WInterfell, a second-rate nobody sitting as Lord of the Crossing, an exiled child calling herself Queen.

If he could not rule from a throne, he would find other ways to rule.

Black Walder: the name inspired the same fear as the Mountain’s name once had, or the Bolton’s name, or the Hound’s. He had risen to the level of myth, the ghost in the night that comes for children who stayed out too long past sun down. When he struck, it was miles away from where he’d last been reported seen, always at dusk, when the light played tricks on the eyes, and it would always, always end in death. He was the chain holding back peace. He was the vengeance of Walder Frey.

“Arya Stark,” he said in a dark whisper. “Do you know the name?”

No one answered.

“You can’t all be fools,” he said patiently.

“The Last Stark,” someone mumbled.

“The Last Stark.”  The Death-Bringer of the Riverlands stared out down the road. “What shall become of her?”

“We will kill her!”  One of the men rose, his fist in the air.

“Run her through!” Another waved his sword.

“Burn her! Till her snow-white skin melts! Make her scream for a winter that isn’t coming.”

In the last gleam of sunset, no one saw Black Walder roll his eyes. “No, you fools.” He leapt down into the trench. “Listen closely.”

\--

“Listen? Do you hear that?”

“You’re imagining things…” Gendry paused as she turned a severe glare towards him. “ _M’lady_.”

Unfortunately that only deepened the glare. For a second, it was almost as if…

“ _Something_ is following us.”

“It’s the bloody wolves,” Gendry said, turning to Lem for help. Lem just shrugged and looked away. Harwin put his finger to his lips. Bloody useless, they were.

“It’s not the wolves.” Her tone ended the discussion and this time Gendry let it rest. There would be no arguing with the Lady of Winterfell, as it was. He ought to get used to that, if they were to pretend she was the real thing.

She had led her horse to the front of their small pack, which he had insisted was foolish if they were to be protecting the Last Stark of Winterfell, but she of course paid him no mind and led the way and no one ever listened to the blacksmith. Gendry had pushed his horse to keep up with her, and Lem and Harwin followed several paces behind.

He watched the back of her head as she glared into the woods, as if just by looking at them she could magically light a torch and see through the branches. But they were travelling by moonlight, they had no torches, and even if they did, they would not reveal the hidden depths of the forest.

“The Innkeeper said…”

“SHH!” All three silenced him. Maybe he was a fool after all. A stupid, bull-headed fool…

They were reaching a bend in the road when Cat pulled on the reins of her horse abruptly. Gendry’s horse nearly collided with hers, stopping only just in time.

She held up her hand to signal to the others to stop as well.

They sat there, waiting, hardly daring to breathe and hardly knowing why. Cat gave up on the woods and turned instead to the ledge above them, but it was nothing but branches and shadows, what little they could see.

She silently unsheathed her sword, and Gendry watched in awe at the agility in her movements—Cat was an appropriate name. She nodded towards the others, waiting for them to do the same, and the look on her face had dispelled any objections he had. Better to look stupid swinging at shadows than to _be_ stupid swinging by the neck from the branches, after all…

He unsheathed his own sword, but he had never felt comfortable with a sword, and an image of his smithy came to mind, the heat of the fire and the power in his arm as he hammered and hammered at the steel. Bones would crush so easily beneath a hammer, he thought, wondering if it was too late to retrieve his hammer from his pack.

Lem and Harwin had drawn their own swords, and now Cat was quietly, slowly leading them around the corner.

Nothing happened.

They continued down the road, silent, ready, guarded; they were well past the curve in the road when Gendry let out the breath he’d been holding.

“You see? Nothing to be…”

Now, Gendry had grown up most of his life being told he was slow or dimwitted or stupid, mostly by a certain little girl who had long ago left him. And much of his life he had often believed these little putdowns, because who was he but a man from Flea Bottom who found his only pleasure in beating a piece of rock? But the truth was that Gendry was _not_ all that stupid, not really, and if he’d been at all stupid regarding their new predicament on the Kingsroad it was not a fault of his being but more perhaps a fault of what he wanted to be: safe, in Saltpans, and alone. If anything, he was reassuring himself, when he said those words.

But that moment when he let his guard down, when he let out his breath and his somewhat lacking form had wilted slightly—that was the moment that they came.

Someone had slipped from the shadows, had hamstrung his horse before he could swing his blade, and everything turned into chaos.

\--

Cat did not need to see what was happening to know what was happening. But she saw with the horse’s eyes anyways, as she had seen with the cat’s eyes all those years ago. She could not turn in time to save Gendry’s horse, but from atop her own horse, she easily slid the thin rapier blade down into the man’s throat and he was dead before Gendry’s horse had hit the ground.

For all his dimwitted, frustrating slowness, the hulking bull leapt quickly, if not gracefully, from his horse before his leg could get caught beneath it.

The battle seemed to move in slow motion for her, as these things always did. Five men slipped from the shadows of the forest onto the road and took them by surprise. Lem and Harwin’s horses fared only slightly better than Gendry’s, but they still had the advantage in the fight. None of these attackers were on horseback.

She slipped around them, stabbing here and there. Many lacked armor, which made it easier for her.

She had always wondered what a battle might be like in war time; the shouts and screams of a hundred, of a thousand-man army, the cries of the horses. The only skirmishes she had ever been in were small, quick, and often times, like tonight, silent. There were grunts. There were yelps of pain. But it was an eerie, gruesome thing, the way their voices carried in the backdrop of silence.

Somehow their enemy had driven them back to the ledge and cornered them there; somehow the number of their enemy had doubled; somehow a large, dark man had descended upon Gendry and disarmed him.

It wasn’t wise, the thing she did then, and it belied the years of training she’d received at the House of Black and White, but she charged blindly at the large shadow that somehow towered over Gendry and she thrust her rapier into his side, where she expected it to plunge easily into his flesh. But instead it met chainmail, and she realized with a start that he was well-armored.

He barely seemed to notice her at all, until Gendry’s eyes flickered towards her and widened and gave her away.

Then the large man turned towards her, his black eyes staring into hers with some strong mix of hatred and vengeance and satisfaction. She glared it all back towards him, this stranger that seemed maybe to recognize her, and then in a blink she was gone, slipping around him, quick like a snake, quiet like a mouse.

She would have to find her entrance; somehow, there was a way to take down this hulk of a man.

But before that she would have to defend herself.

She found Gendry’s blade at her feet, bent to pick it up and rolled away just as the man’s blade crash into the dirt.

“You’d have to be slippery,” he said, his voice hoarse, “to have slipped away from death for so long.”

“I am death,” she said, hopping backwards from him, towards the slope that led up the ledge.

Out of the corner of her eyes, as she passed the foot of the ledge where Gendry still stood, she saw another of the men advancing toward him and she saw that the smith had no weapon. She tossed her dagger and it landed in the man’s left eye.

“If we get through this,” he said under his breath as he plucked the dagger from the corpse, “remind me to thank you.”

“Make yourself useful, and we just might,” she said back.

And then she realized that the man had not swung at her again, although he had continued to follow her. _He wants me alive?_

To test her theory, she shifted into offense, bothered him with feints and thrusts. But she was small, and not armed to take on a man twice her size with a bastard sword in his hands. She could not get close enough to hit him again, and even if she could, her rapier, perfect and balanced though it was, would not penetrate his armor.

How does a mouse take down an elephant?

It was a lesson she’d once had at the House of Black and White.

\--

It was a difficult decision for Gendry to make, to leave Cat crouching in the shadow of the man who he could only assume, based on the blue towers on his chest, his size, and the fierce anger that glowed in his eyes, was Black Walder. But he was useless with a sword, let alone a dagger, and he needed, desperately, to beat something with a hammer.

He edged his way back to his fallen horse, which was, he realized with much surprise, not too difficult. Cat and Lem and Harwin seemed to have already taken down half the attackers. Fortunately his horse had fallen on the right side, and the pack with the hammer now protruded up into the night air from the side of the horse’s belly. The horse was shaking and crying and he couldn’t bear the sound, so he slit its throat first, and then, eyes on the battle ensuing before him, he took out the hammer that should never have been put away in the first place.

Just as he was standing another attacker was upon him, large but not towering like Black Walder. Gendry did not think. His right arm came down, hard, and it was just as he thought. Bones crushed easier than steel.

He did not look back, only hurried and hurried back towards the ledge, towards Cat, towards certain death.

\--

Men like Black Walder were heavy, and the trick was to use their weight against them. The only question was how. He was too good of a fighter to tire, and too good of a fighter to trick off-balance. He knew the terrain, too, and would not fall for her attempts to lead him up the ledge, where she would have the higher ground, where she could tease him onto the edge of the cliff and send him tumbling to the ground below.

And men like Black Walder, for all his anger, were also patient.

And she was getting frustrated.

Cat looked up into his eyes—still not knowing who he was precisely but knowing he was one of _them—_ and wondered where that damn wolf was, and why hadn’t it found _this_ particularly gray cloak and ripped out his throat.

She had known the wolves were getting closer. If Gendry had been stupid today, he hadn’t been stupid about that, and she had been worrying about it all day, whether she would have to convince her party that the wolves were safe, how she might go about doing so. But where was the wolf now?

“Just give in. I don’t mean to kill you, and I won’t harm you,” the man was saying, “much.”

She knew exactly how much he intended to harm her and didn’t bother responding. The only dialog she was concerned over was that of their blades. She was better with a rapier than a sword, but of course the rapier was useless here. Back and forth their blades swung, beat, thrust. He was toying with her, not breaking a sweat, and she was only stalling until she could think of some advantage.

Somewhere behind his hulking back, Lem and Harwin were still fighting. She had no idea what had become of Gendry. She was surprised to find that she hoped he was alright.

Then the Frey man’s blade nicked her arm.

_If I were still a Faceless Man, I would have killed this man the moment I saw him. What has become of me?_

But the truth was that she had always had the element of surprise on her side, when she was an assassin. And if anyone had ever noticed her, she had fled. She did not stand and fight fights there was no hope of her winning.

And then she heard it, the sound of steel on steel. It rang in her ears and the Frey man stumbled towards her. She didn’t know what had happened, but she didn’t need to know the why in order to know the how. In the split second that the Frey man blinked in surprise, she thrust her sword up and swung and opened the bloody smile across his throat.

She ducked from beneath the body as it fell to the ground with a loud thud.

Gendry stood by the body’s feet. In the darkness she could barely see the hammer in his hand. Their eyes met and all they heard was the sound of their breathing.

Somewhere in the background she heard shouting and the rustle of trees.

A yellow cloak vanished into the woods in pursuit of the few Freys well enough to flee.

A deep, echoing howl rose up in the dark of the night.

She was not worried.


	6. Learn to Do It

The flickering candlelight did not reach quite far enough to illuminate the vast entirety of the dungeon, but Qyburn did not need to see what lay beyond the surface of his desk.

Few people in the world would have set up a study in the dungeons of the Dreadfort, but Qyburn had been working in the bowels of the Red Keep before they’d left King’s Landing, so the transition had been easy. While he no longer had subjects that justified the use of the dungeons, he knew with complete certainty that it was one of the few areas in which Cersei would not bother him.

The instruments of torture that waited in the shadows did not unnerve him.

But what did unnerve him was how scarce the ravens had been of late. In the eight years that had passed since they fled King’s Landing, many of his contacts, which had formerly been vast pools of knowledge, had vanished. Some, he guessed, had died in the skirmishes that had followed the Scourge of King’s Landing or in the early years following the Dragon Queen’s invasion. Her loyal subjects had rounded up those who had sided with the Lannisters and who they believed might become traitors one day.

Black Walder had certainly been his strongest ally, physically at least, and one that had taken years to earn the trust of. Qyburn had sought him first because he was capable of finishing the job quickly. And yet…

He still had not heard from the Freys—from any of them. Not that he expected an answer from Walder right away, but it had been more than a week since Walder Frey had first written back to him confirming his acceptance of the mission. Certainly by now they had captured the girl.

What never crossed his mind was that she might have gotten the better of Black Walder. One simply did not get the better of Walder Frey. No, what worried him more than the torture devices in the belly of the Dreadfort was that he’d been betrayed.

It was something that Cersei could never understand, but the reality of their situation meant that they had very few bargaining tools. The many contacts who had not kept in touch—and had also not been brutally executed—knew that Qyburn lacked the means to repay them. What few contacts that did keep in touch with him did so because in the past, Qyburn had repaid in full and then some. While it was something Cersei could not seem to grasp, he’d always found it useful to reward loyalty.

It was why they’d been stuck in the Dreadfort all these years. He knew, when Cersei looked at him, that she thought he was keeping her there as some sort of punishment. She thought that Qyburn could snap his magical fingers and they would be delivered from their plight at his earliest whim. But the truth was this: who would risk their necks to save him? Let alone the despised lion queen who had fucked her brother and spawned a monster that nearly ruined the kingdom?

With that in mind, he had already started drafting a letter to his most trusted contact—someone who may have lacked the physical strength of Walder, but was certainly the most potent of his allies and the most loyal. He’d met the warlock many years ago, while still a scholar at the Citadel. The blue priests came often to the Citadel back then. If he had to, he’d request assistance in retrieving the Stark girl from the custody of the Freys.

By the time the letter was finished, the candle had melted low and was flickering at the bottom of the wick. He stood with a groan, every ache punctuating his movement. This opportunity with the Stark girl couldn’t come soon enough, and though he had never been a religious man, he found himself appealing to whatever higher power truly existed that his plans would work.

But Qyburn was a practical man, and however much he might have prayed, he spent more time thinking. And even though his back-up plan was folded up in his hands, already he was preparing for a negative answer.

It took him quite awhile to reach the bottom of the tallest tower still standing at the Dreadfort, and even longer still to climb the stairs. Cersei would surely be waiting to berate him in the dining hall. Perhaps if he was lucky, she’d become so bored of waiting that she would retire to her quarters before he arrived.

Candlelight greeted him at the top of the stairs. This was odd, as none of the servants could read, and so had no business in the raven keep. No, this was supposed to be his space, one of the few that Cersei did not visit.

Yet when he turned the corner, there she waited, her back to the door, a piece of paper half crumpled in her bone-white fist.

She did not move as he came into the room, though the ravens squawked at his presence.

He guessed the contents of the letter.

Cersei was most fearsome when she was silent, and so he gave her a wide berth and went to prepare the raven to deliver his message.

“When were you planning on telling me that your plans failed?” she said, her voice sharp and cold, like a knife.

She could do little to threaten him; though his frail body was weak, hers was not significantly stronger.

“My plans have not yet failed,” he said calmly, cutting a thread from the spool he kept in a cabinet by the window.

“Still you insist on lying to me.”

“Your Grace,” he said carefully, “I do not know of what you speak.”

“The Freys are dead,” she said, impatience seeping into her tone. She tossed the crumpled parchment onto the desk. “All of them. The Stark child escaped.”

Qyburn sighed. Well, at least the worst of his fears had not occurred. It would have been more problematic attempting to take the girl from Black Walder’s custody than to simply plan another attack. Though his friend the blue priest would have been quite prepared to take on even the likes of Black Walder (for the blue priests had many other ways to bring down brutal strength), it would prove much easier to capture the girl. Not that it had been easy for Black Walder, apparently, but the blue priest could use subtler arts to catch her. After all, if she could escape the Black Beast of the Riverlands, perhaps she was physically adept. But those skills would not help her against whatever plans the warlock would employ.

“The Freys are not our only allies,” he said, responding to Cersei’s impatience with patience. He tapped his finger against the letter in his hand.

“Oh, yes, these wonderful, absent allies of yours,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Tell me, where have they been these eight long years? Eager to rush to our help, they are?”

He sighed again and tied the note to the raven’s leg. “And tell me, Your Grace, how you would repay them for their efforts?”

She opened her mouth, no doubt ready to declare herself as the rightful queen of Westeros, and that that position offered innumerable monetary rewards. But of course, that was something she could no longer promise or guarantee.

“Most people in our line of work don’t consider promises of future wealth very persuasive,” he said with a sneer. “Fortunately, my allies are loyal. You can rest assured, my friends in the North will not disappoint.”

\--

Blue sky, a pleasant breeze, the warmth of the summer sun on his cheeks—yet somehow, Harwin found it difficult to enjoy the atmosphere.

The sun had risen and set several times since their encounter with the Freys, and many miles now stretched between them and the bloodied road. They had not looked back. They had not waited for someone to come upon the scene and ask questions. They had merely continued ahead in an awkward silence.

That first night had been long and sleepless. Eager to escape any possible repercussions of the slaughter they’d left behind—for none of them could pretend that their story of self defense, though true, would be believed when they could not know the loyalties of anyone nearby—they had travelled until the sun rose.

Yes, they had known that Black Walder was widely feared throughout the Riverlands, and they were certain that the common people would rejoice at the news of his death. But they had no idea as to the extent of Black Walder’s allies, and most importantly, they did not know whether Black Walder had reinforcements waiting in the shadows of the woods. Had they slain his entire party, or only a small part of it?

Though Black Walder’s penchant for random, brutal violence was well known, Harwin could not help but suspect something more sinister was at play. He knew the large knight could have killed Cat in a sweeping blow, even despite the girl’s impressive display of skills. Something had stayed his hand. If Black Walder had simply intended to rob them, there would have been no need to keep her alive.

It had been no secret that they had been searching for the last Stark back in Saltpans. Was it possible that someone had heard that they had found her?

These were the worries that kept Harwin awake at night.

But there were other worries that bothered him during the day.

“Hold still,” she said, her voice muffled behind the bandage she held between her clenched teeth.

“It stings!”

“Are all Westerosi men babies?”  Cat asked, turning to Lem. Gendry scowled.

The yellow-cloaked knight laughed. “What stings more, Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill? The cut or the words?”

From his seat on a rock, Harwin watched as Cat tended to Gendry’s wound and frowned. Though the cut on his arm had not been particularly long, it had been deep. Cat was inspecting the wound now, looking over her handiwork and confirming it was healing properly. She had poured some kind of mixture over it; that’s what had stung.

Harwin had been impressed at Cat’s ability to stitch up Gendry’s arm. But he was worried about the worsening tension between his two travelmates. And Lem was only making matters worse.

When the wound was cleaned and bandaged up once more, they set out down the road. Because Gendry had lost his horse, they had been forced to walk. The going was slow, and frustrating, and the warm summer sun that had been comforting in the early morning had now become unforgivably hot. Sweat rolled down his neck and soaked into the woolen shift he wore beneath his armor. Despite the heat, he wasn’t taking chances on another possible ambush.

“Must we walk all the way to Winterfell?” Lem drawled, glancing back at Gendry. “Perhaps Ser Gendry and Lady Stark could ride together?”

Harwin thanked the old gods and the new that neither Gendry nor Cat had enough energy to argue the point, but the glares they sent towards him said enough. He sighed.

“We’ll buy a horse as soon as we reach the nearest village.”

“It’ll be winter before we reach the nearest village,” Lem muttered. If he was trying to be quiet or subtle he had failed miserably.

Harwin ignored him nevertheless. Children, he thought hopelessly, I am surrounded by children.

Gendry had been the worst. Harwin could count on his hands the number of times Gendry had spoken in the last few days, and whenever he did speak, it was only short phrases. His frown had deepened and the shadows under his eyes had lengthened as the sun sank below the horizon. While Gendry had always kept his own council, there was something almost unnerving about his silence.

But it didn’t take a maester to understand what was bothering him.

As the oldest member of their odd little group, Harwin had resigned himself to being the peacekeeper. Even so, he decided he’d wait until morning to speak to anyone.

They made camp, confident about the space they’d put behind them. Harwin took the first watch, all the while turning over the words he would say to Gendry in his head. Quick temper, the boy had. Harwin could imagine where that had come from. If he wasn’t careful, he’d only make Gendry’s mood worse.

When he woke in the morning, the air was cool and slightly humid. His blanket was damp and he could see the dew shining in the grass and on the leaves of the trees. He hoped the night had eased the tension between their party the way the rain had eased the hot tension in the air from yesterday.

Once they had been walking for a little over an hour, Harwin let Lem and Cat rush ahead while he trailed behind with Gendry.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” Harwin said.

Gendry just looked at him.

“I know what’s been bothering you,” Harwin said, “and the ambush was not your fault.”

Gendry sighed but didn’t say anything.

Harwin continued, determined to say his piece. “Those men were waiting. They must have been waiting for hours. It never mattered how loud you were. They always knew we were coming.”

“I know that,” Gendry said, his voice cracking after having been used so infrequently in the past few days.

“You know that?”

“I’m not stupid.”

Now it was Harwin’s turn to be quiet. Had he really judged his friend’s thoughts so poorly? He had known Gendry for years, and yet, apparently he had completely misunderstood the lad’s moods. He wondered if this was what it was like to raise a teenager. Perhaps it was a blessing to have never reproduced.

“I haven’t…” Gendry ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “I’ve been no gentleman. And she saved my life.” He held up his hand. “And she patched me up.”

“So apologize and be done with it,” Harwin said, and then he winced inwardly, knowing that he had decided to be patient with the stubborn bull.

“It’s not that simple.”

Harwin looked at Gendry. “You finally think she might be Arya?”

“No,” he said quickly, but then something seemed to give—his expression softened, his shoulders slackened. “Maybe.”

The realization hit him even as the words came from his mouth. “You’ve never forgiven her for leaving you.” He paused and shook his head. “We had this conversation long ago. What were you expecting to happen? You told her yourself. If you went with her to Riverrun, you could not stay friends. You’ve always known this. Your time together was always destined to be short, but now, you have a rare second chance to do the right thing. Be the gentleman.”

Gendry did not speak for a long time. Harwin stared ahead down the road, where previously Lem and Cat had been specs in the dirt. They must have slowed down because they would soon be within earshot.

“Do you really think this girl is Arya?” As Gendry spoke, Harwin was reminded of the lost, purposeless young lad that had pledged his service to the Brotherhood Without Banners so many years ago.

Harwin wanted to wait and weigh his words before answering, but he didn’t want Cat to overhear, so he blurted out the first thoughts that came to mind. “It’s harder to think she could be anyone else. Maybe it’s as Lem says, I’ll use any excuse to return to Winterfell. Maybe it gives me a little hope to believe that not only is Arya really alive, after all this time, but that we found her. I don’t know what I believe—I just know what I want to believe. But look at her Gendry. If Arya was still alive, what would she be like? After all she had been through, her father’s death, on the run in the Riverlands during wartime, kidnapped by the Hound, her brother and mother’s deaths, and whatever else happened—who would she be?”

Gendry crossed his arms and looked away, out into the woods along the edge of the road. “But what if it isn’t her?”

Harwin held up his hands. “Honest mistake.”

“Is it a mistake worth hurting for?”

There wasn’t really much Harwin could say to that.

“What if she is conning us?”

At that, Harwin had to chuckle. “After that speech she gave at the Inn? I don’t doubt that she is. Or she thinks she is. And what for it, if she is?”

Gendry looked towards Cat, thoughtful and yet suspicious. “Do you think the Lord of Winterfell would ever believe that is his sister?”

Harwin looked ahead at Cat as well and saw her smack the backside of Lem’s head.

He could not contain his laughter, and Cat turned and stared at him. “Arya was always wild.” He glanced her over again, taking in her ragged and torn garments. She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Maybe she is a little rough around the edges. Mightn’t hurt to clean her up a bit!”

They had caught up with Lem and Cat now, and so could not continue their conversation. But a quick glance back at Gendry reassured Harwin that whatever he had said had helped the boy somehow. He could only hope his morale would not worsen.

But his job as mediator was not yet finished.

If Gendry had improved, Cat had somehow worsened. Harwin watched as the dynamic in their group shifted. Gendry allowed himself to smile when Lem called him slow in speed as well as thought, saying it was a miracle that Gendry had managed to catch up.

Cat, on the other hand, frowned, and would not look at Harwin or Gendry. What had Lem said to her? Had he worsened her already fragile mood?

Harwin had thought he had known Gendry well enough to understand what had been bothering him, and still he managed to guess wrongly. Cat he hardly knew at all. She, like Gendry, had often been quiet and sullen. Nothing like Arya had been as a child, Harwin thought to himself, already questioning the words he had used to convince Gendry that this girl might be her. Was he fooling himself, too? Did he miss his old life in Winterfell so badly that he had concocted a mad scheme at some foolish chance that he had found the last Stark?

When did I become a bloody parent? He found himself questioning no one.

**

Harwin did not approach Cat for quite some time, but around midday, they paused at a river to catch their breath and eat the last of the food they’d brought with them from the inn (which by now mainly consisted of stale bread).

Cat did not sit with them, but rather lingered on the bridge, staring down at the water rushing below. Harwin thought about the little girl he’d known so many years ago, and how she’d wanted nothing more than to reach the Trident and go home to her family in Riverrun.

He gave her a few moments to herself before joining her on the bridge.

“You don’t think they’ll believe I’m Arya, then?” He almost didn’t hear her, she had spoken so softly.

Harwin said nothing.

“What if I’m not Arya? What if I am Arya, but they don’t want me?”

She hadn’t looked up since he’d come over. He leaned over the side of the bridge to see what she was staring at, but the water was actually quite calm. It flowed evenly, steadily.

It was her reflection she was staring at.

“What do you see, when you look down there at the river?”

“I see no one. With no name and no family.”

“I see a fierce young woman, a warrior who has clearly survived so many years of suffering and loneliness that she refuses to speak of it, a fighter who brought down one of the last obstacles of peace in the entirety of Westeros when we were outnumbered, and an angel of patience who has somehow miraculously found a way, through all of that, to put up with three old curmudgeons!”

Perhaps the joke was somewhat trite, but he could see the small smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

“If you are worried, we are here to teach you, you know. The etiquette that Arya Stark would have learned growing up.”

Cat chewed her lip and kept staring down into the river. “If I really was Arya, wouldn’t I already know all that?”

Harwin shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Arya was so young when she was ripped away from the life she should have known. And I’m not really sure how much she retained, even back then.”

He smiled and elbowed her conspiratorially. When he turned, he noticed that Gendry had joined them on the bridge.

“Does m’lady have a moment?” The sheepish expression on his face made him look so much younger, and for a second Harwin was reminded of a moment, years ago, when Gendry and Arya had emerged from the smith, disheveled and guilty-looking.

“Do not call me m’lady!” Cat blurted, looking somewhat surprised at her own outburst.

“And there are some things we won’t have to teach you.” He winked at Cat before turning and leaving.

\--

Training at the House of Black and White had been agonizingly slow. She couldn’t remember anything before her time there, but she did remember waiting, day in and day out. She remembered her time in Braavos, listening and bringing back three observations every day to the kindly man. She remembered that desperation and impatience to learn something new.

Training to be Arya Stark could not have been more different.

Every waking moment had become an opportunity to learn something. The Stark family tree. The great Houses of Westeros. It seemed as though Westeros was populated by millions and she had to learn every single citizen’s name. And not just their name, but their house, and which great House they were sworn to, and the colors of their banners, and where they lived, and how many servants they had, and what color was the third brick of the left wall in the tallest tower…

Really, it would be a miracle if she remembered any bit of it at all. If she was actually Arya, perhaps that’s why she had run away all those years ago...

They had finally reached a village, and as they sat down in the great hall of the inn, Harwin requested ink and paper and scribbled out a map of Winterfell.

“Here you have the Great Hall, the Great Keep, the Sept… the bridge here connects the Great Keep to the armory… and then here you have the Godswood, the Glass Garden… and then over here…”

“Wait,” Cat said, her eyebrows furrowing. “What is the Glass Garden?”

“There are springs beneath the castle that heat it year round. The springs heat the garden, so the castle can grow vegetables, fruit…”

“Didn’t Winterfell burn down?” Lem said, leaning back in his chair and staring across the hall towards the kitchen.

“Lord Jon and Lady Sansa have no doubt rebuilt it to its former glory.”

 Lord Jon and Lady Sansa. Her supposed siblings. If she was Arya.

“Tell me more about them,” Cat said quickly, bored of architecture and fortifications.

Harwin let out a long sigh. “Lord Stark returned from the war, a babe cradled in his arms. He told everyone, even Lady Stark, that the babe was his bastard son. And that’s how he was raised. Truth be told, he was luckier than most bastards. All the same, it was no secret that Lady Stark did not care for him.”

He paused to take a sip of ale. “Jon and Arya—Jon and you, that is—were very close. Two peas in a pod. Causing mayhem about the castle.” He smiled to remember it. “But when he came of age, he chose to leave for the Night’s Watch.”

A girl bit her lip and looked up at Harwin with large gray eyes. Something had stirred in her, like a bell ringing in the distance. She reached for her pack and felt the small blade, Needle, poking the fabric at the bottom.

“You were very upset about it. But you were leaving in a few days yourself, headed with your father towards King’s Landing.”

“What about the wolves?”

“Ah, yes. Grey Wind. Ghost. Lady. Nymeria. Bran was still comatose when I left, but we’ve all heard the stories of the skinchanger and his wolf, Summer—I’ll tell you that story soon. And then…”

“Shaggydog,” a girl blurted, surprising herself.

She saw Harwin shoot a glance towards Gendry. “I don’t believe we told her that!”

\--

In the morning, the who’s who of Westeros had subsided into proper noble etiquette. Cat could not take a bite of food without having to suffer through Harwin’s corrections. “Ladies do not slurp. It’s not polite to glare. No elbows on the table. Don’t interrupt Gendry. Don’t slurp your soup! Forks are not for stabbing.”

Honestly, she couldn’t imagine enjoying being a noble. Perhaps she had made a terrible, terrible mistake. Could she turn back now? Had she gone too far? She could probably slip away…

But for all the time spent riding through the Riverlands, not remembering a thing, she had to admit, there were times… there were moments when she felt as though the answer was just around the next corner. She’d get a sort of inkling, when she heard something significant, like the name of Arya’s wolf. Nymeria. Yes, when she said that name in her head. She could feel the wolf—the one she dreamt of at night—she could sense it lifting its head. That’s what it was like, now and then, when Harwin said something.

Maybe she wasn’t Arya. But every day she became more and more certain that the North was her home.

She had considered the idea that her connection with the wolf was undeniable proof that she was Arya. The Stark children had rarely been seen without their wolves. But despite Bran the Greenseer’s skinchanging powers, there was no evidence that suggested any of the other children could do it, too. There were, of course, war stories surrounding Robb, but Harwin was sure they were all exaggerations inspired by and meant to inspire fear.

And also, skinchanging was apparently more common among the wildlings.

Perhaps she was simply a wildling, then.

It would explain much about her, she thought. And Braavos was not so far from Skagos or the Bay of Seals.

All she knew was that her answers lie in the North.

So she suffered through the etiquette, and the history lessons, and the endless lists of nobility.

Until, finally, she had to draw the line.

“I will not be dancing with him,” she said, refusing to look Gendry in the eye. The clumsy bull was sure to step on her toes. Not that she couldn’t out step him. But why take the risk?

And all that besides, things had been weird between them since he’d apologized on the bridge and started being nice to her. She almost wished that things had gone back to normal, and he’d be grumpy again. At least then she could justify being angry at him.

The kindly man would have scolded her for hanging on to her anger. It’s not useful, he would have said. Let it go. It will only blind you to your true mission. Anger is a cloud and until you let it go, you will wander aimlessly in circles.

But, as she had taken often to reminding herself, the kindly man was not here. The kindly man had made her leave. So she could be angry if she wanted.

And she was quite angry now.

“I’ve always known how to ride a horse. Why would I remember how to ride a horse, but forget how to dance? I thought you said that Arya hated anything to do with proper courtly things?”

“It was well known in the Red Keep that Arya regularly took dancing lessons,” Harwin said patiently. “With the Braavosi, Syrio Forel.”

There it was, like a chime in her head. But when she tried to remember, it was just another handful of sand slipping through her fingers.

“The only time you will see me dance is with a sword,” she said, and she retired to her room.

\--

“Don’t slouch. Keep your back straight. Shoulders back.”

“Where did you learn all this, then?” Gendry asked Harwin as they watched Cat’s seventh attempt to cross a ditch via a narrow tree trunk with a book balanced on her head.

 “I had a few lady friends when I lived in Winterfell,” Harwin said, shrugging.

“And the proper technique for balancing books upon one’s head just happened to come up in conversation?” Lem said. “I can see now why you have no children.”

Though he could not see Cat’s face, Gendry guessed by the shaking of her shoulders that she was struggling—and failing—not to laugh. The book tumbled to the ground again, pages flapping before it landed with a plop in the dirt.

Gendry could not disguise his own laughter, either.

“Oh, you think it’s so easy?” she said, hopping down from the log to pick up the book. “Let’s see you try.”

“With pleasure, m’lady,” he said, bowing slightly.

She threw the book at him. He caught it just before it would have hit his face.

Gendry placed the book on top of his head, and very slowly stepped onto the log. He fully expected one of two things would happen, and either way something or someone would be landing very soon in the dirt. He could only pray to R’hlorr that it would be the book.

He took the log one step at a time, foot over foot, concentrating hard on a knot on a tree across the ditch and trying to remember all of Harwin’s adviced which Cat had ignored.

Somehow made it, albeit at the pace of a snail, to the middle of the tree trunk.

He dared to speak, “See? It’s not so hard. If I can learn to do it, you can learn to do it.”

Something did hit his head this time, and suddenly he found himself at the bottom of the ditch.

Despite the embarrassment, as he looked back to toward the end of the log, where Cat stood, poised and triumphant, he found himself smiling.

\--

As they neared the edge of the Riverlands, the lessons switched to tests.

“Catelyn Tully, daughter of Hoster Tully,” she recited as they mounted their horses in the early morning. “Brother Edmure and sister Lysa. Lysa Arryn, wed to Jon Arryn, son Robin, both killed by Lord Petyr Baelish.”

The names had already devolved into ones Gendry had never heard, and he listened with amazement as she continued to list more. She had memorized all these in less than a fortnight?

He was growing more and more certain with each passing day that his initial judgment of the girl had been brash and unfair. Times like these forced him to admit – maybe he was a bit of a stubborn bull. Though he had already apologized to Cat for his behavior, the guilt remained.

Not just the guilt for his treatment of her in the past month, but also – in fact, most particularly – his role in Arya’s disappearance, all those years ago, and the anger he had felt for so long at what he had perceived as her abandonment of him.

But Harwin was right, and either one of two things were true.

One – the girl was not Arya, and in fact, he must be resigned to the fact that he will never see Arya again. It had been so long. If it hadn’t happened by now, if this girl was not Arya, then likely as not, he would never see her. And there was no use in dwelling in a past that no longer mattered. If this girl was not Arya, she wouldn’t know any of the slights Gendry might have committed against her during their childhood, and wouldn’t care. So he might as well get along with her.

Two – the girl was really Arya, but truly had no memory of her past. In that case, she didn’t remember her anger towards him for joining the Brotherhood. If she had managed to move on, why shouldn’t he?

Either way, he had wasted eight years being miserable. Maybe it was time to move on. If she could learn to do it – maybe he could, too.


	7. Learn to Do It (Reprise)

 

A girl looked out from the edge of the causeway, towards the bog that stretched far out to the west. Below her feet, the ground slanted down and disappeared into the swamp. Just a few steps forward and she’d be in the mud, and only slightly further still, she’d be able to pluck one of the large flowers that floated on the water. Branches of half-drowned trees reached out to come only inches from her face, white fungus drooping from the limbs and obscuring the swamp beyond.

She breathed in the cool, damp air and closed her eyes. In her mind’s eye, she could see the snakes watching from the trees, the quicksand waiting to suck her down into the mire, the lizard-lions swimming below the surface of the black water waiting to leap out and snap her between their dagger-like teeth.

“Don’t stand too close to the bog, m’lady.”

Her eyes opened at the sudden noise. From the sound of his voice, Gendry was standing several feet behind her.

She couldn’t have explained why, but every time he said that word— _m’lady_ —she struggled to suppress a strong desire to strike him. Stupid bull, she thought. He knew she hated that word. He was using it on purpose, to rile her up.

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Instead, she stayed rooted to her spot and stared out into the bog.

“Something is watching us,” she said.

“Which is maybe why you should come back to the road,” Gendry said, sounding slightly less patient.

“It’s the lizard-lions I told you about,” Harwin added.

“Not the lizard-lions. Not the snakes. Something else. Now be quiet.”

By now, they had learned not to second-guess her instincts. So they hushed and let her be.

She closed her eyes again and concentrated. If only there was some creature…

Yes! In the trees, there was in fact a snake coiled around the branches, its eyes fixated on the strange two-legged creatures on the road. A girl became a snake and looked around the swamp.

Even from the vantage point of the tree, the snake could not see much better than the girl. She moved the creature’s head from left to right and scanned the water, the trees, everything. She saw flowers and fungus; she saw fish and frogs. But no sign of anything—or anyone—else. Had she been imagining it?

She was about to slip away, when suddenly she felt a strong pressure around the creature’s neck. The world spun until she came face to face with green eyes.

The girl stumbled backwards and slipped on the muddy ground. Someone shouted, “Cat,” but she was still lost in the trees.

“There!” she whispered, pointing in the darkness towards the direction the snake had been.  “Someone is watching us.”

Gendry’s hammer was already out and she could hear Lem and Harwin unsheathe their swords. She slipped a dagger from her boot and stood, while keeping her eyes focused on the same spot in the shadows.

It did not take long. A canoe emerged from the shadows captained by a small man with dark hair and green eyes. Judging by the wrinkles on his face and the careful way he rowed, Cat guessed he was older than Harwin.

“The Others take me,” Harwin whispered.

The man stood in his canoe as it slid into the muddy bank. He leapt onto shore with much more agility than the wrinkles on his face suggested, and Cat wondered if she had misjudged his age. Though he carried a three-pronged spear and wore bronze scales that suggested some experience as a fighter, Cat could not guess why Harwin seemed concerned. There was something soft and gentle about his expression. Lem had warned her that the crannogmen could be dangerous, but her gut told her otherwise.

If this man was one of them, she could only assume he had decided, at least for the moment, not to harm them.

He stopped before her and knelt to one knee.

“My lady Stark,” he said. “Please accept my humblest apologies for having startled you. Lord Howland Reed, of House Reed, at your service.”

Cat’s eyes widened and she looked helplessly back at Gendry, who shrugged, then at Harwin, who nodded towards her encouragingly. “You know what to do,” he mouthed. It was true, they had taught her the words to say, but now that this strange man knelt before her, her mind had gone blank.

Someone cleared their throat and she knew she’d have to say something quick.

“My lord,” she said slowly, surprised at the panic coursing through her. A girl never panicked. “May your winters be short and your summers b-bountiful. You may rise.”

She racked her brain. Howland Reed, of House Reed. The lord of the Neck. A close friend and ally of Lord Stark during the rebellion. If this man was who he said he was, then he was quite important. She gulped. There was no room for error.

If she had stumbled at all, though, the man made no mention of it. He rose with a small smile on his face.

“So, are the rumors true? Are these the men that brought down Black Walder and his band of outlaws?”

No one spoke. They hadn’t yet been questioned about the deaths of the Freys, and they had felt lucky for it. Who could know the loyalties of the men who lived in the upper reaches of the Riverlands, who had for so long sworn loyalty to House Frey?

But they were in the Neck now, and Cat had a strong notion that this man could be trusted, that he was who he said he was, and she owed him her honesty.

“Aye, ‘tis true,” she said, proudly. For why shouldn’t she be proud? The man had clearly been a brute and the world was better without him.

The grin on Lord Reed’s face spread. “Well done,” he said. His gaze shifted towards the rest of their party, and Cat realized they still had their weapons out.

“Sheath your swords,” she said, “for we are clearly in the company of a friend.”

They put away their weapons, though Lem looked pointedly at the spear in Lord Reed’s hand and made a point of sheathing his sword slowly.

“You look familiar,” Lord Reed said, looking at Harwin.

Harwin nodded. “My lord. We met when I was but a lad. I am Harwin, son of—“

“Of Hullen! Yes, I remember. Before the rebellion. That was the last time I set foot in Winterfell for many years. You helped prepare my horse, if I recall.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Tell me, what became of your father?”

“He was killed many years ago, in the service of Lord Stark.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Harwin,” Lord Reed said softly. He looked truly grave. “I see you serve the Lady Stark as dutifully as your father served hers.”

“Hopefully I will not meet a similar end in her service,” Harwin answered. Cat could hear the tension in his voice, and saw him eye the crannogman’s spear.

“You will meet no such end at my hands,” Reed said, lowering his spear. “However, I must warn you, though we enjoy a lengthy peace under her grace Queen Daenerys’ rule, the Kingsroad, as you have already learned, can be dangerous. What brings you to the Neck?”

“My men are escorting me home, to Winterfell,” Cat said, trying to feel noble.

“Such a small escort for such a lady as yourself,” Lord  Reed said. “Are there not more in your party? Did you suffer losses against the Freys?”

“No, my lord, these are all I have. I prefer to travel light, so as not to draw attention to myself. If you don’t mind, ser, how did you recognize me?”

“My lady…” Cat tried not to wince so obviously at this address. “I would recognize the face of a Stark anywhere. Your father was like a brother to me.”

“Oh.” Cat could not disguise her surprise. This was a good thing—that she looked like a Stark. But somehow the comment made her feel even more like an imposter.

“If my lady does not mind,” Lord Reed said, paying no attention to Cat’s slip in etiquette. “It would give me great pleasure to escort you through the remainder of the Neck. And, if your lady wishes, your party may find welcome and rest at Greywatch Watch.”

She could not deny the temptation of a warm bed. It had been more than a week since they spent the night at an inn, and besides, perhaps she could learn more about Arya—or herself, she must start thinking of Arya as herself—from this man.

“It would be an honor, my lord.”

\--

If Cat had been at all nervous during their interaction with Lord Howland Reed, Gendry could hardly tell. The longer she talked to the crannogmen, the more confident she seemed to be. And there was even a moment, when she self-righteously declared it had been them that had killed Black Walder, that he thought for sure his friend Arry was standing in front of him.

As it turned out, there had been other crannogmen waiting in the bog. They didn’t come out until Lord Reed gestured. He humbly apologized for hiding his men, but, he explained, he didn’t want to intimidate their small party.

There were about twenty of them, and Gendry was surprised to see women among their number, dressed not too differently from Arya— _from Cat_ , he reminded himself. Breeches, bronze scales—they even carried spears like Lord Reed’s.

As Gendry climbed into one of the boats—thankfully one that was larger than a canoe—he looked out skeptically into the bog that awaited them. A wave of nausea passed over him, and it was only partially because of the rocking of the boat.

Like any child, he had heard many stories about the crannogmen of the bog and the strange creatures that lurked there. In fact, Arya had told him some of those stories. He remembered, with a  slight smile that only slightly eased his nerves, the way her eyes lit up in the glow of the campfire as she told him about the giant, beautiful flowers—thirty-six different kinds, she had said—that floated on the surface of the water and the quicksand that would suck you down if you tried to pick them and the snakes that hung in the trees and the lizard-lions that drifted like logs in the water.  

No, he really did not want to enter the dark bog before him.

He turned back to look at Cat, who looked gleeful as she climbed into her boat.

He sighed. It was going to be a long day.

\--

As expected, Gendry spent most of the first hour at Greywater Watch in the privy. It hadn’t helped to learn that the island itself floated, too. Although it was large enough, the crannogmen had said, that he shouldn’t be able to feel the movement. How very wrong they were.

When at last his stomach had settled (or rather, had emptied the last of its contents), Gendry emerged into his chambers—yes, they had given him _chambers_ —to find Lord Reed standing beside the window.

For a moment, Gendry felt quite certain that he was dreaming. Maybe he had eaten one of those poisonous frogs Lem had told them about and now he was hallucinating. For the first time, he took a good look at the room he’d been put up in. Though likely modest for a castle—the crannogmen did not seem the type for luxuries—the chambers seemed to belong to a noble. A four-post bed dominated the center of the room; richly embroidered tapestries adorned the stone walls. A fireplace crackled in the corner, and there was even a small rug beside the bed. Perhaps he had misunderstood the crannogmen and had accidentally wandered into the lord’s quarters.

Yes, certainly that was the more likely case. Perhaps he could slip out quietly without the lord knowing he had disturbed him. But then, who wouldn’t have heard him in the privy? Still, the lord seemed not to realize he was present…

“Gendry, is it?” the lord said, turning from the window. Gendry’s heart hammered against his chest. Oh, now he was in for it.

“Y-yes, m’lord,” he said.

“I apologize for disturbing you,” Lord Reed said, and Gendry once again found himself concluding he must be hallucinating. “Normally, I would have my servants bring you new clothes…”

He gestured towards Gendry’s shift, which now had vomit stains on top of blood stains.

“…but my curiosity got the better of me, I’m afraid.”

“I do not understand, m’lord.”

Lord Reed seemed not to hear him. “You can find a change of clothes on the bed. It took us awhile to find something in your size, but I think you’ll find these suitable.” He pointed towards the four-posted bed, which was further evidence of the hallucinatory effects of the toad he must have eaten earlier, which he now concluded had indeed been poisonous, and perhaps had caused his current nausea.

The lord of the crannogmen returned to the window. “I have a favor to ask of you, Gendry,” Lord Reed continued. “I understand this may sound peculiar. Although I never found conforming to societal expectations particularly rewarding, it may help your cause nonetheless to dress the lady as a lady.”

“M’lord, Cat… the Lady Arya dresses as she pleases…”

“Normally, of course,” Lord Reed continued, paying Gendry’s comment no notice, “I would entrust such a task to the ladies of Greywater Watch, but well, they’re a little intimidated by the Lady Stark. And they hardly feel as though it would be appropriate, given they don’t dress like ladies themselves. But if you plan on presenting the Lady Stark at Winterfell, it might be best if she was dressed as a proper lady. I say this in light of the Lady Sansa’s sensibilities.”

Gendry simply stared. The hallucination wasn’t responding to him, so it was probably best he just wait this out.

“The dress is on the bed, next to the clothes laid out for you. I recommend changing yourself first. It may help to convince the Lady Stark.”

He might as well play along. He nodded. “Yes, m’lord.”

“I appreciate your assistance in this endeavor,” Lord Reed said. “Harwin said you’d be up to the challenge.”

Finally, the lord of House Reed made his way to the door. Before leaving, he paused and looked back at Gendry.

“Imagine,” he said, although he seemed to be talking more to himself. “A bull in lord’s clothing. Although, perhaps you are more stag, than bull, eh?”

“M’lord, I…”

The door closed behind him. Gendry stared at it for several moments, wondering what other strange side effects of the poison he’d so obviously ingested would be. He waited. And waited.

When at last nothing seemed to happen, and his stomach remained settled, he walked over to the bed to see the clothes that had been laid out.

“The Others take me…”

\--

Gendry had been standing outside the door to Cat’s chambers for several minutes before the door suddenly opened in front of him—despite the fact that he hadn’t yet knocked.

“Oh—hello,” Cat said, a laugh lingering on her lips. From beyond the door came the sounds of giggling.

“Hi,” Gendry said, shifting his feet. He felt suddenly hot and pulled at the collar of the white linen shirt he’d found on his bed. He saw Cat’s eyes widen as she noticed his tunic, and he was sure now that his face was Lannister red.

Lord Reed had left him a white linen shirt, woolen trousers and a golden wool tunic with black trim. They were the nicest set of clothes he’d ever put on, even if they were a little worn and faded. He had put them on at first under the assumption that he was still hallucinating, and if he was going to hallucinate he might as well go along with it.

Nevertheless, it had taken Gendry a certain amount of courage just to leave his room, and he now faced his next endeavor with something resembling terror.

“Is that for me?” she asked, pointing at the bundle of gray fabric folded in his arms.

“Oh, erm, yes,” he said.

She waited, and, when he did nothing, she raised her eyebrows.

“Can I see it?”

“Oh, of course,” he mumbled, and he held out the dress.

It unfolded as she grabbed it, and the gray wool rustled and flapped as it fell. The neckline was trimmed with fur, and, now that it had unfolded completely, he could see also that the Stark direwolf had been embroidered on the front.

The dress itself looked much too big for Cat. She regarded it skeptically.

“In the middle of this swamp, I suppose this would serve better as a tent than as suitable travelling clothes, no?”

“So you don’t like it?” For some reason, he felt as though it had been his fault, as though he had picked it out just for her, although of course he hadn’t.

“When it comes to swords, your taste is impeccable. Dresses, on the other hand…” She made a clucking sound with her tongue. Yet despite her disapproval, Gendry couldn’t help but feel as though this was going much better than he had imagined it would. Perhaps he was, in fact, still hallucinating. His stomach had started flipping again; surely that must confirm the side effects of the poison had not yet dissipated.

“Although personally I’d choose a sword over a dress any day.” She smiled at him, and then one of the handmaidens came to the door.

“Oh,” she cooed, “my lady, is this the dress you plan to wear tonight? It suits you well!”

The maiden looked pointedly at Gendry, as though they were conspirators in some plot and she had just given him his cue.

“Oh—uh—yes,” he said, “Harwin figured you ought to change out of your, erm, traveling clothes. And the dress would be good, to, you know, have… because… it’s… uh… it’s something that Arya—that m’lady would wear…” He trailed off. The handmaiden glared at him.

Cat laughed. “I’m afraid I might get lost in there and never return to Winterfell!”

“Not to fret, my lady,” the handmaiden said, “we could tailor it to suit your figure.”

“That’s kind of you,” Cat said, and Gendry worried that this already tense situation was about to head down a dangerous path. “But I wouldn’t want to keep the host waiting… I was just heading down to dinner…”

“Nonsense! We couldn’t have you go to dinner looking like _that_ ,” the handmaiden said. “Lord Reed would feel as though his accommodations weren’t to your liking.”

Cat eyed the dress hesitantly.

“We wouldn’t want to insult our host by rejecting his hospitality,” Gendry said, and he was trying to sound encouraging, but it sounded more like a question the way that he said it. “Besides, I’ll be wearing this,” he pointed to his golden tunic, “so you have nothing to fear. The court will be laughing at me, the blacksmith dressed as a lord. I’ll be far too ridiculous for anyone to notice what you’re wearing.”

Cat looked over his clothes again, her face a mask, like it had been when they first met.

“We haven’t much time, my lady,” the handmaiden said. “We better get started.”

“Alright,” Cat said, sounding only somewhat reluctant. “And you don’t look _that_ ridiculous.”

She closed the door before he could say anything. His heart hammered against his chest for the second time that evening, and, oddly, he found himself hoping maybe it hadn’t all been a hallucination after all.

\--

Cat could not believe how quickly the flock of handmaidens had transformed the tent of fabric into a dress that actually fit—although their definition of “fit” might differ slightly from hers.

“It’s a little tight, can’t you make it looser? And the neckline…”

“Looks just fine, dear,” said one of the older handmaidens, a woman named Wren.

Cat sighed and looked in the mirror. She hardly recognized the girl standing before her. In the past hour, the maidens around her had stripped off her dirty, travel-worn clothes, taken her measurements, scrubbed her clean, trimmed and stitched the dress, and braided her hair.

A girl was gone. The woman in the mirror could not be any other but Lady Arya Stark.

If she was vain, she would have been pleased. The gray wool brought out the gray in her eyes. The maidens had done a simple braid, which hung over her right shoulder. She certainly looked like a northern noblewoman.

Though Gendry hadn’t explained himself very well, she could guess what he was trying to say between his convoluted babble. If she wanted to convince Lady Sansa that she was Arya Stark, she would have to look the part. What better way to practice than in this nobleman’s castle?

Still, the idea of wearing a dress had daunted her. She had sometimes worn simple dresses, when needed, in her line of duty for the Faceless Men. But she had never worn something this nice—something this fitted. She reached for her cloak.

“It’s quite drafty in here, I think I’ll wear this over…”

“Don’t be ridiculous, my lady,” said one of the maidens, a girl named Darla, perhaps feeling much more confident now that Cat was laced up in the dress. There was no turning back now. “You’ll be warm enough in that wool, and besides, this cloak is filthy. It’ll have to be washed.”

“You better hurry, dear,” said Wren. “Lord Reed is waiting.”

And with that, they ushered her out the door.

\--

The Great Hall of Greywater Watch was modest and small. She’d been in much nicer chambers in her travels on Essos. The crannogmen had hung Stark banners in between the gray-green Reed banners. Cat couldn’t help but notice how the banners frayed at the end and seemed worse for the wear. How long had it been since they had had visitors, she wondered.

Glancing around the hall was a mistake; she soon noticed that most of the guests were still clothed in the garments they’d worn in the bog. Those ladies that did wear dresses wore only simple frocks of green. She stuck out like a sore thumb. She wanted to vanish back into the bog.

Gendry, Harwin and Lem were seated at the head table across from Lord Reed and his wife. They all rose as she entered; indeed, she felt the eyes of all upon her as she took her seat beside Lord Reed.

Perhaps the dress was too much. Perhaps she should excuse herself and change…

“My lords,” she said, curtseying. “I fear I have made a fool of myself, and overdressed. I would retire to my chamber and …”

“My dear,” Lord Reed said, grinning. “Do not humble yourself so.”

“Truly, my lady,” Harwin said, bowing his head. “You look beautiful.”

“Indeed, you’ve the beauty and grace of your father’s sister herself, the Lady Lyanna Stark.”

A bell went off in her head then, and she looked at Lord Reed in surprise.

Harwin had not told her much of Lyanna Stark—only that she had turned out to be Jon Snow’s true mother, that she had run away with Rhaegar Targaryen. She sensed, however, that it was a very flattering compliment.

“My lord, you are too kind.”

She wanted to vomit, hearing herself talk. But, with the Faceless Men, she had played many parts before. The best way to think about all that was happening was to consider the character of Arya Stark as another face to wear. It had taken her maybe a little too long to come to this conclusion, but it had helped quite a bit during the endless lessons Harwin had given her.

The crannogmen brought out an assortment of fish, fowl and even frogs. But she’d eaten worse things in Essos. She had a bite of everything, to be polite, and was surprised to find the frog wasn’t half bad.

The company was better than the food though. She soon discovered Lord Reed was as wise as he was kind. He regaled them with stories of his youth, of his time with Lord Ned Stark and his sister Lyanna. Cat decided the comparison to Arya’s aunt to be quite satisfactory; this Lyanna sounded like a woman after her own heart.

Cat had had several cups of wine by the time the minstrels started playing. At the first lull in conversation, Lord Reed excused himself and escorted his wife, Jyana, to the dance floor, which was already beginning to crowd with crannogmen.

“Now that you look the part of a lady,” Harwin said, leaning forward. “It is time you learn to dance like one.”

Not this again. Still, the wine was having a strange effect on her. She wasn’t half opposed.

“Alright, Harwin,” she said, standing, “Teach me.”

Harwin led her to the dance floor, and he whispered the steps as they twirled across the stone. This dancing thing wasn’t so hard.

But soon, Harwin grew tired. “I am much too old for dancing, it seems,” he said, “but perhaps Gendry can take my place?”

Cat turned and found herself face to face with Gendry. She hadn’t seen him leave his seat.

“If m’lady would have me,” Gendry said, bowing. Cat couldn’t help but laugh. The entire scene was ridiculous—She, in a dress. He, in that golden tunic. Both of them dancing. He blushed at her laugh, though, and she felt a little guilty.

“Of course,” she said, feeling her own cheeks burn.

Gendry took her hands in his and they started to dance.

“No, Arya,” came Harwin’s voice, “what was I just telling you? Let the gentleman lead.”

They danced without talking. Cat surprised herself at how quickly she had picked it up. Perhaps it had been something she’d learned once. Anyways, it wasn’t so hard, if you were good on your feet. And Gendry, shockingly, hadn’t stepped on her toes once.

“You look different,” he said. It sounded stupid, the way he said it. Of course she looked different. She was wearing a dress.

“I look ridiculous,” she said. “It doesn’t fit right.”

“It looks nice, though,” he said. Between the red on his face and the golden tunic, he might have been sporting Lannister colors. “You even smell nice for a change.”

She looked up at him and wanted to stomp on his foot. But Gendry was just a stupid bull sometimes, she had to remind herself, and sometimes he put his foot in his mouth when he was trying to be nice. And besides, there was something ringing in the back of her mind, and she had that same feeling she got, sometimes, like she was almost remembering something.

He chanced a grin, and she smiled back. “Well, one of us ought to.”

\--

From the head table, Harwin watched the two youths spinning on the dance floor, and wondered if he had made a huge mistake.

“I never should have let them dance,” he said, thinking he was talking to himself.

“I thought the lessons went quite well.”

Harwin looked over to see the Lord Reed sitting alone on the other side of the table. His wife must have retired to her chambers.

The smile did not last long, and the mirth that had permeated Lord Reed’s voice earlier vanished when he said, “They do bear a striking resemblance to Lyanna and Robert.”

Harwin could not hide the dark look that must have passed across his face.

“So he is Robert’s son, then?”

“For all the good it does him.” Harwin sighed. They sat in silence for a song, watching Cat and Gendry dancing and smiling. He was almost surprised to see them enjoying each other’s company. Almost. “Robert’s son or no, he’s still a bastard, and it’s not likely that anyone will legitimize the rebel king’s bastard. And to make matters worse…”

“He’s in love with her.”

“They knew each other when they were children,” Harwin said, shaking his head. “And when he realized who she was, and what that meant… well, it didn’t end well. And it’s going to play out the same. Arya Stark cannot be friends with a bastard blacksmith. She cannot go home to her family and be with him.”

A long silence, even longer than before, followed Harwin’s speech. After a quite some time, Lord Reed said, quietly, “It can never do, separating the stag from the wolf.”

Then the Lord Reed stood and excused himself. Harwin watched him go, thinking about the crannogmen’s penchant for greenseeing, and frowned.

\--

Gendry and Arya were the last couple on the dance floor, and the last to notice.

“I think the music has stopped,” Arya said quietly.

“So it has,” Gendry answered, feeling lightheaded.

“So I think we can stop dancing,” she said.

“Oh—right.” Gendry hadn’t realized they’d been spinning until they stopped, but then, even when they were standing, the room still seemed to spin around him.

“I feel a little dizzy,” Arya admitted.

“Probably the wine,” Gendry said softly.

“Of course.”

“Perhaps, outside…”

“Yes.”

Gendry took her arm in the crook of his elbow and escorted her outside the castle. The “fresh” air was still the clammy air of the swamp, and he wasn’t sure how helpful it would be. He still hadn’t decided whether he was hallucinating, whether he was dreaming or whether he had just gotten miraculously lucky.

They walked along the grounds in companionable silence, and for the first time since Gendry could remember, he felt… what was the word? Content.

When they returned to the castle door, the moonlight caught his eye, and he turned to Arya.

“Arya…” he started.

“Yes?”

He paused, and she was looking up at him, her gray eyes wide and, for the first time, innocent and open and so completely different from the eyes of the girl that he’d met several weeks ago in Saltpans. She was looking at him with… trust.

The recognition of that emotion filled him with a bursting joy, and she leaned closer to him, and he leaned down, and just when he was about to close the distance, he realized what he’d done.

He’d called her Arya.

When had he allowed himself to believe…?

And the full extent of everything hit him, like the force of a hammer, and he felt like a metal that had cooled too quickly and shattered in pieces across the anvil.

Was it fair to her to think she was Arya? No. Of course not. He could love a girl named Cat, but he couldn’t pretend she was Arya. That wasn’t fair.

And if she _was_ Arya… well, he already knew how that story ended.

This was bad. Very, very bad.

He backed away.

“Your family will be happy to see you.”

And then, like a coward, he fled, leaving Arya—Cat’s angry face behind him.


	8. The Nightmare

 

Cat hugged her cloak around her tighter as they approached the ruins of Moat Cailin. Whether it was the chill in the air, the myths surrounding the broken castle, or the realization of just how close their journey was to its end, she couldn’t have said. But, with the ruins still obscured by a shroud of mist, it was the lands that stretched beyond that occupied the top of her mind.

The crannogwomen had given her clean breeches, a clean shirt and even a polished set of bronze scales to wear as armor, but the Stark dress had been folded neatly and stowed away in her horse’s pack behind her left leg. Its mere presence seemed to burn the back of her leg.

When they had parted with Lord Reed at his castle, they had insisted she take the dress with them.

“It belonged to your Aunt Lyanna,” Lady Jyana had explained, “and so it now belongs to you. Take it home.”

She had to accept it; she had had no choice. But it didn’t feel right.

To make matters worse, as they said their goodbyes, the Reeds had sworn the House Reed pledge to her. They had knelt before her and said it in unison.

 “To Winterfell we pledge the faith of Greywater. Hearth and heart and harvest we yield up to you, our lady. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you.”

“I swear it by earth and water,” said Lady Jyana.

“I swear it by bronze and iron,” said Lord Reed.

“We swear it by ice and fire.”

Cat repeated the line she had said the day before, only this time with more conviction. “May your winters be short and your summers bountiful. Rise.”

Though she made every effort to appear confident, it was strange to hear those words come from her own mouth. It seemed almost as though someone else had taken control of her body, and she was just watching from the inside. She wanted to vanish into the shadows of the hall, to put on a different face and disappear, as she had so many times before.

 “I am an imposter,” she wanted to say. “Do not pledge to me. It is an empty pledge. It is wasted.”

But she stayed silent, and the Lord Reed sent them away with an escort of twenty men and women. Getting the horses back in the boats was even more difficult than it had been the first time, but the crannogmen managed it, somehow.

The journey through the swamp took most of the day. Greywater Watch, apparently, currently floated in the southwest end of the Neck. And though the journey was long and arduous, the crannogmen insisted it cut in half the time it would have taken them to travel on the Kingsroad.

To make matters worse, their entire journey was waylaid by the rain. When it wasn’t pouring, it was drizzling. The boats rocked and Cat could hardly see the water before her, though the crannogmen had no trouble navigating. If there was any silver lining to their journey, it was the lining of the traveling cloak that the crannogwomen had given her, which had been treated some special way, and the water rolled off the slick material without soaking through.

And throughout the whole journey, she clutched the bundle that contained the dress in her lap. When she could not see before her, she could still see the pack, and in her mind’s eye, she pictured the Stark-gray dress, with its emblem embroidered on the front.

She could not force from her mind the image of Gendry’s face when he first saw her in the dress, nor the look on his face as he had leaned towards her and whispered the name “Arya.”

Stupid bull.

She looked over towards his boat and saw him retching over the side.

 _All Westerosi men are babies_ , she thought to herself, thinking of the how he’d winced when she’d bandaged his hand.

“Don’t worry, my lady,” one of the crannogwomen, a girl named Merla, in her boat said. “He’ll be alright when we reach the road.”

“What? Oh—no, I’m not…”  But Merla just winked, so Cat sighed and looked away. She refused to look in his direction for the duration of the journey.

By the time they reached the causeway, even Cat was thankful for solid ground.

They came upon Moat Cailin just as the sun hit the horizon. As the clouds parted, the light bounced off the post-rain fog and the towers of the castle ruins cut through the twilight mist like broken swords. Though the road was slick and wet from rain, Cat found she was unable to take her eyes off moss-covered stone. The closest tower, which stood where the west and south walls had once met, leaned crooked, like a man half in his cups. It must be the so-named Drunkard’s Tower, she thought.

Harwin had described the castle ruins during the boat ride in the morning, and had named each of the three remaining towers: the Drunkard’s Tower, which she now looked upon; the Children’s Tower, which she could see rising, tall and slender and broken, like an old, deposed king presiding over the ruins of his war-torn lands; and finally, on the north end, the Gatehouse Tower, which as the widest of the three towers was the only one that had a few feet of standing wall on either side.

Yet despite Harwin’s descriptions, she had not anticipated what she now saw before her. Moss clung to the stones of all three towers, and the mist that floated between them seemed to represent the ghosts of the thousands of men that had died in battle at the chokepoint of the ruins. The break in the clouds did not last, and as she gazed upon the broken crown of the Children’s Tower, a clap of thunder shook her to her bones. She shivered as the wind blew damp air, like the breath of the dying, across her face.

They picked their way carefully around the large blocks of black basalt that stuck up from the muck, and she tried to picture what these ruins might have looked like thousands of years ago. Harwin had told her, too, the fable behind the ruins, how the Children of the Forest had attempted to break the land, as they had broken the Arm of Dorne, and how they had only managed to flood the Neck to create the bog.

Today, Moat Cailin stood as the gateway to the North and as a warning sign to unwanted guests. She looked up at the broken towers and wondered if it wasn’t a warning sign for her.

“My lady,” said one of the crannogmen, “wait here. Our party will scout ahead to make sure there is no ambush waiting.”

She nodded and half of their party disappeared into the mist.

As the only passable road into the north, the Kingsroad was most dangerous where it passed through the ruins, which could obscure and protect archers as they fired upon unwary travelers. The surrounding swamp, obstructed with sinkholes, serpents and lizard-lions, had apparently become too dangerous in recent years even for the crannogmen to navigate, and so they were forced to travel through the ruins and whatever dangers might lurk therein.

At most, they truly only feared pickpockets or other highwaymen that might want to rob them, but with their previous encounter with the Freys weighing on their minds, they had welcomed the crannogmen’s offer to escort them and check the ruins before proceeding.

As they waited, the sun slowly fell below the horizon, and the last light of day—however little there might have been—faded into darkness.

They passed the time in silence. Their horses paced nervously, and all the while, the pack containing Lyanna’s dress pressed on her mind. She could feel it there, burning her leg. She could imagine the fabric, folded neatly in the satchel, and however much she tried to push it from her thoughts, she could see Gendry’s face when he first saw her in it. She could hear his voice. “Arya.”

She was no Stark. She did not deserve this gift. It did not belong in her pack.

Finally, unable to stand it, she dismounted her horse to rearrange her pack. She would give it to Harwin to carry, but she couldn’t keep it by her side. It wasn’t honorable.

The dress had been bundled in a piece of thick wool, and when she tugged on it to remove it, it snagged on something else in the pack. She pulled again, and the bundle finally gave way, but with it, the item that had prevented it from coming out in the first place—Needle.

The small sword hit the ground with a loud clang that echoed in the clammy air. Gendry, who was closest, looked down from his horse. Cat did not notice his eyes widen as she scrambled to pick it up and inspect it for damage.

“Where did you get that?” he said, quietly, so only she could hear.

She looked up, clutching Needle close to her, and suddenly felt defensive. The anger she’d felt towards him when he left her the previous night surfaced, and her mouth twisted into a scowl.

“That’s no business of yours.”

“Did you steal it?” He sounded angry, too. She glared at him for a second before turning to put Needle away.

“Why do you care? It’s just a stupid sword.”

When she looked back at him, his jaw was clenched and he was still looking at her.

“I don’t know, alright?” she said. “I’ve always had it. I… I found it somewhere, is all.”

His expression remained the same. The usual urge to smack him surfaced, and so she threw the bundled dress at him.

“I don’t have room for this in my pack. Take it back.”

He caught it, and Cat was pleased to see his stern expression wiped away by his surprise. She felt his eyes on her as she mounted her horse, and before he could say anything, she directed her horse to trot away, towards the front of the group, where Harwin sat waiting.

Harwin raised his eyebrows when she approached, but she didn’t say anything and he didn’t ask.

Finally the crannogmen emerged from the ruins, waving for them to follow.

Cat led the way, guiding her horse forward slowly, paying careful attention to the slick basalt stones and the muddy causeway.

Their entire party settled in the Gatehouse Tower, the easiest to defend. The crannogwomen laid out some blankets for her in a corner of the room and then let her be. She watched the party settle around her from the safety of the shadows, and for the first time in several weeks felt at home.

Briefly, she pulled out Needle and ran her finger along the thin blade. It was too dull to cut her.

Gendry’s question burned in her head. _Where did you get that?_

“I wish I knew,” she said quietly, before tucking it away in her pack.

She sighed and lay back. Sleep came quickly.

\--

The blue priest had watched bog devils search the castle ruins from the shadows. Qyburn’s letter had only mentioned a party of four, and he hadn’t anticipated such an entourage. But that did not mean he was helpless against them.

They were clever, yes; they knew every inch of the worn out stone. But his magic had hid him well, and they had not come near him. And they had not noticed the sleeping powder he’d laced the tower with before they’d arrived.

He had spotted the Stark girl almost immediately. She rode at the front; the brash stupidity of it elicited a sneer that cracked across the blue priest’s face. But that was a characteristic of a Stark, wasn’t it? Foolishness.

When he had first received Qyburn’s letter, he had been skeptical that he would still be able to perform the magic required for the illusion this capture required. Yet his debt to Qyburn burned in his mind like wildfire, and he knew he had no choice. Besides, it would feel good, after all these years, to be challenged.

The weather helped. The mist, the storm—perhaps he could not have performed the magic that hid him without them. His illusions continued to conceal him as he followed the girl to the top of the tower, where she settled in the corner by herself in the shadows. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

He began his work.

\--

She would meet Mycah by the river.

But she would have to be quiet. She could not alert the servants around her where she was going. They would tell her father, and then it would all be over, and it had only just begun.

The wooden sword she stuck through a makeshift belt made of rope. It clapped against her side, and she had to hold it still as she tiptoed past the servants. None seemed to take any notice of her though; she was always underfoot. That was natural.

On the edge of camp, the ground sloped down, down, down, and then at last she was by the river. She could smell the water. Strangely, the air seemed humid and clammy for the Riverlands, but perhaps it had rained recently.

“Mycah!” she said in greeting. He smiled and they began.

\--

A deep howl in the night woke Gendry from his sleep. At first, he wasn’t sure what woke him, and he rolled over on the stone floor. He had only just lain down; for the second night in a row, he’d spent the majority of his evening in the privy, still sick from their journey in the swamp. When he had returned to the tower, something smelled so bad, he thought he’d wretch right there in the landing of the stairs. So he had ripped a cloth and plugged his nose.

But then the howl came a second time, and he knew that was what had woken him. The wolves that had been following them—that he thought they’d lost when they entered the Neck—had caught up.

Still, the wolves would not come in the tower. They were safe. And yet, shivers rolled down his spine. What was he afraid of?

\--

The blond boy was ruining all the fun.

“Go away!” she shouted at him. “Leave us alone!”

But the blond boy would not listen. He sneered at her and said something stupid about how it wasn’t gentlemanly for Mycah to strike a girl.

Mycah didn’t stand a chance. He was on the ground, his wooden sword broken beside him, before she could even blink. And the blond boy raised his sword to strike.

\--

The wolf howled a third time, and a spark ignited in Gendry’s mind. With dread churning in his stomach, he looked towards the corner in which Cat had settled.

The blankets were empty.

He was on the stairs before he could even think, and though he continued to descend, he cursed his stupidity for not waking more people. But why was he worried? Cat had probably just gone for a walk. She could keep herself safe.

\--

“Interesting,” the blue priest thought, as he watched the Stark girl wave a tiny rapier—a child’s toy, he thought. Her eyes had glazed over; she was deep in the dream.

The blue priest could not completely control the visions his victims experienced, but he could, to some extent, control the source of sounds she heard and he could urge her movement. But he wouldn’t be able to predict what the victim might actually see. This was the most interesting part of his work, and the part he most enjoyed.

From his boat in the swamp, he called out to her, playing along like a mummer. The girl thought he was some enemy, and she charged into the waist-deep water towards him, waving her sword. He raised the poison blow dart to his lips.

\--

Gendry did not even bring his hammer, and he felt sorely lacking without it. Fearing the worst, he burst outside the tower and whirled around.

Cat had not gone far. He found her, wading in the water, waving the small sword which he recognized as Needle.

“Cat!” he called out, charging in after her.

\--

The blue priest cursed when he saw the large male emerge from the tower. What had woken him? The sleeping powder should have been potent enough to keep all the occupants in a deep sleep until dawn.

But, when he noticed ripples in the water, his confusion gave way to an idea.

\--

A tall, blond woman had arrived, tall and terrible in her red and gold dress. Arya looked up at her and was filled with rage.

“Not Lady!” she cried. Her sister’s dog was paddling in the river towards the Queen. “No, Lady, come back! It wasn’t her fault!”

Lady was swimming straight to her death, and Arya had to stop it.

\--

Both Gendry and the blue priest watched in amazement as the sleepwalker shifted in the water in order to charge towards the lizard-lion.

“Stay back, Cat,” Gendry yelled.

She waved her sword and shouted back, “Leave Lady alone!”

The blue priest, on the other hand, racked his brain for how he could remedy the situation before him. The girl was running away from him, towards the lizard-lion that he had enchanted to attack the man, and had left the range of his blow dart. Coming closer would only reveal his position.

How had it all gone wrong?

The man, yelling and splashing in the water. The distant howling of wolves. The noises had distracted the girl, had meddled with the hallucination. He cursed himself for the lack of foresight; the challenge had perhaps been too great for him. He was out of practice, after all.

He would have to retreat, and think of some other plan.

The arrival of the direwolf confirmed his decision, and so he slunk into the shadows and wondered what he would write to Qyburn.

\--

They all collided at the same time: the lizard-lion, the direwolf, Gendry and Cat.

For several moments, which felt like hours, Gendry struggled amidst splashing water, a mess of fur and the threat of dagger-like teeth. In the darkness, he could barely see before him, and his heart hammered against his chest as she searched for Cat and prayed to whatever gods would listen that the lizard-lion would not find either of them.

Somehow, miraculously, in the splashing and chaos, Gendry managed to grab Cat and pull her from the water.

She kicked and screamed the whole time, shouting, “Lady! Lady! Leave her alone!”

But finally, back on dry land, he shook her. The white cloud in her eyes cleared, and she stopped screaming.

Then she heard the splash from the water.

The clouds cleared overheard, and the moonlight illuminated the cloud of red spreading in the swamp water. Through the splashes of water, he caught glimpses of fur and scales and teeth and claws.

Cat lurched towards the water and he gripped her tight. She was shouting again and sobbing, and he knew they had to leave. They had no weapons. There was nothing they could do but let nature take its course. And besides, he didn’t want to stick around when whichever animal won—he did not want to be next.

He hoisted Cat over his shoulder and took her back into the tower.

All the while, Cat’s fists beat against his back. He ignored it, and by the time they reached the room at the top of the tower, she had given up. He dropped her onto her pile of blankets.

As she looked up into his eyes, tears shining on the twisted, wretched face that she normally kept as opaque as a porcelain mask, it did not even occur to him to wonder why none of the crannogmen and women had woken.

He sat down beside her, and he held her through the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pledge that the Reeds recite was taken from Chapter 21 of A Clash of Kings.


	9. The Key to Her Heart

It would be an understatement to say the Dreadfort was drafty. The northern wind knew every crack in the crumbling stone walls. It knew the gaping holes where entire towers had fallen. It knew the stairways and passages. It knew how to chill Qyburn to the bone.

And still the wind was no match for the icy look that Cersei now sent him.

“They’ve bog devils protecting them,” Qyburn said. “One man is no match for twenty.”

“Are all of your allies this incompetent?” Something flickered in her cold eyes. “I see now why we’ve been kept here all these years. I should have known, what friends could a man like you keep?”

Qyburn lowered his gaze to look upon the floor.

“We’ve only one choice now,” she said. “Awaken Ser Robert.”

“And what do you plan to do with him?”

A cold point pressed against his neck. The letter opener.

“Something we should have done years ago.”

The point disappeared and he heard her footsteps on the stone. There seemed to be a lightness in her step.

“We travel at dawn. And Qyburn,” she said, and when he looked up, her eyes flashed with a fire he had not seen in her in a long time. “Do not question me again.”

\--

From the Maester’s Turret, Jon could look out and see the rest of Winterfell: nearest, the Library Tower, steps curling around the curved stone like vines; behind that, the Great Keep, now proud and strong since its restoration had finished several years prior; and, further in the distance, the Broken Tower, finally undergoing a long overdue renovation. Beyond the towers, the sun continued its descent towards the horizon and cast the towers in gold. Winterfell would never be the castle he’d lived in as a child—it would be better.

In acknowledgement of the coming evening, his stomach growled, and his mind returned to the task at hand—the one keeping him from dinner.

“Of course I remember Uncle Benjen, father’s youngest brother,” continued the girl sitting in the middle of the room. Her long, thin fingers entwined around each other so tightly he could see the whites of her knuckles from his position in the shadows, behind the maester’s desk. The girl could not see Jon, or Sansa, who sat beside him. She spoke instead to Sam, whom Jon had persuaded to leave the Citadel to become his maester.

Jon knew the journey had been difficult on his friend, and not just because of the distance he’d had to travel. Sam’s resentment and Jon’s guilt in regards to the separation of Gilly and her child had formed the stones and mortar of the wall between them. Sam’s commitment to the Night’s Watch stood as another obstacle. It had taken months of negotiation in order to, as Sam still considered it, “steal” him away from both the Citadel and the Night’s Watch. He owed the success to Sansa, of course, whose political prowess had allowed them to make the necessary maneuvers.

Still, Sam had been cold during his first few months, feeling as though Jon had betrayed the Night’s Watch by taking him away from the duties which he had sworn to uphold. Jon had promised that if Sam still wished to return to the Night’s Watch after a year at Winterfell, he would not stand in his way.

But the years living in the south at the Citadel had eclipsed the true hardship of living on the Wall, and over the course of a year at Winterfell, the memories came rushing back. The cold. The wights. The rough men who would never see Sam as more than “Ser Piggy.”

And then Jon had sent for Gilly, and that had changed everything.

Perhaps it had been selfish, taking Sam from the Night’s Watch, but Jon would have no other maester serve under him. No other was more loyal, more thoughtful or more astute (Jon would admit no bias here, despite Sansa’s suggestions that there might exist other maesters who would serve just as well and didn’t require months of persuasion and savvy letter writing).

“The last time I saw Uncle Benjen was the great feast we held for the Lannisters, the last time I was here, in Winterfell. Then he left to return to the Wall…”

From the shadows, Jon held in the heavy sigh that threatened to betray his presence. Beside him, Sansa rolled her eyes. He turned back to gaze out the window.

To the right of the Library Tower, out of sight, stood the Great Hall, also happily restored to its former glory. Inside, servants prepared the tables for the supper that would soon ensue. He wished he could be there inside the Great Hall, enjoying the large banquet that was to come. Or in the courtyard, practicing his swordsmanship. Or even in the Broken Tower, pasting stones together.

But no. He was here. Humoring yet another one of the girls that Brienne had found from some corner of the Riverlands.

On the opposite side of the room, Brienne’s attempt to hide her feelings had twisted into a frown. No doubt she had realized halfway through the interview that she had failed once more.

He looked back at the so-called Arya. Lanky, wasted away. Stringy brown hair that wasn’t quite the right shade of brown—it was too light. Eyes that were more blue than gray. A certain nervousness about her that she had claimed to have acquired from eight years of hardship in the Riverlands. But it was clear to him this girl had never been raised in a noble house.

 “And I recall, with much fondness, the times Lady Sansa and I would spend with Septa Mordane. How we so enjoyed our needlework…”

“That is enough.”

Jon cringed at the edge in Sansa’s voice as she stood and emerged from the shadows. He could not blame her. Despite Sansa’s shrill declaration, despite the way it rang in his ears, she was right.

It was enough.

The girl before them cowered slightly—further proof, he noted, that she could not even remotely be who she claimed to be. But he had already concluded, from the moment he saw her, that she was not Arya. She was too tall; he’d noticed that the moment she’d walked through the door, even though of course he hadn’t seen Arya since she was nine. He simply couldn’t imagine or fathom her growing up to be tall.

He rubbed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair before leaning forward into the light.

“Brienne,” he said, trying to retain some form of patience. “Please escort…”  At a loss for words, he gestured towards the girl that sat before him. “Please show her out.”

“M’lord…” Jon cringed at the obvious slip. The girl corrected herself. “My lord. I am Arya, I swear, I…”

But Brienne, for all she was oblivious, was obedient, and she led the girl from the room.

“Forgive me, Lady Sansa,” Sam said as soon as their guests were gone. “I thought for sure we’d found her. I promise I’ll ask harder questions next time, I…”

“Sam,” Jon said.

“I’ll give you the room,” Sam said quietly before following Brienne out the door.

Jon leaned back in his chair. As he waited for Sansa to speak, he looked about Sam’s study. Scrolls had been stacked unceremoniously on a table in one corner. In another, an assortment of odd tools and instruments glistened in the golden light of the setting sun. He wondered when and how Sam had acquired his collection. He wondered if his friend was happy in Winterfell. He would have to write Lord Tyrion and see if he wouldn’t mind lending a few books from his collection. Jon owed Sam, after all.

They’d been holding interviews in the maester’s tower since they’d first announced their search for their lost sister several moons ago. The intimate setting seemed more appropriate that the Great Hall, after all, and once the flood of girls claiming to be the Last Stark had arrived, Sam had become a necessary asset in weeding through the obvious fakes.

It was better for Sansa this way, too. Having to endure a parade of imposters was bad enough, but to bear the embarrassment and the pain publicly would have been too much.

Sansa was quiet for some time, and so Jon turned his gaze once more towards the window and the surrounding towers. It gave him strength, knowing what the castle had been through, to see the towers standing tall once more.

“I can’t do this anymore, Jon.”

He let her words settle in the space between them before responding.

“I know it’s hard, Sansa,” he said softly. “But she’s out there. I know she’s alive…”

 “I’ve had enough!”  She waved her hand as she spoke and knocked over an inkwell. He winced as it shattered against the stone. He had never seen Sansa this angry since they had been reunited all those years ago. Sad, of course. But always she had maintained a sense of decorum. She had told him once that was what it meant to be a leader, to be a Stark. _You must stay strong for the people._

He was about to respond when he heard a long howl from the courtyard.

The last remaining direwolves had returned to Winterfell long ago. Ghost had come with Jon. Shaggydog had come after Rickon’s death. Summer had come, well, with the end of winter.

Jon knew the howls of each of the three direwolves by heart, better than Sansa knew any bard’s song, in fact. Even Sansa could tell the difference between their howls.

Which was why they both rushed towards the window.

\--

“Well if the day couldn’t get any worse,” Jaime muttered to himself.

He had anticipated a foul day when he had first laid eyes on the girl Brienne had brought back. But Brienne had been so adamant, he didn’t have the heart to tell her—again—that she had found the wrong girl. Perhaps cowardly, he had left that dirty work for the Starks. Well, it was their sister after all, and who was he to say anything?

Plus, if he was wrong, and he’d turned the girl away? Well… it’d taken him this long to repair the relationship between the lions and the wolves. Sometimes it was just best to let life take its course.

And take its course it did. As the day progressed, a grueling practice had left the troops angry and bitter. As Winterfell’s captain of the guard, Jaime Lannister was used to a certain amount of resentment—some reputations just could not be forgotten, no matter how much he had done to win himself into the Stark’s good graces. As if returning the beloved Sansa Stark was not enough! These northerners could be as unyielding as the icy Wall.

As it happened, his daughter Joanna had overheard a particularly nasty comment regarding years of his life he’d rather not think about from a particularly bitter soldier (who now had a fortnight of hauling stone for the masons to look forward to). Joanna should have been with the Septa, but, though she had inherited the Lannister look, she had inherited her mother’s fascination with swords. And so, in addition to spending much of the afternoon comforting his daughter, he had been forced to walk down a dark section of memory lane—one he’d have much rather never had to traverse for the rest of his life.

What hurt perhaps the most was looking into Joanna’s green eyes and seeing Myrcella’s. His first daughter was perhaps the happiest part of his life before the Stump, and yet, that made it the most difficult to remember. Word had come years ago of her death, although time had not clarified the circumstances regarding it. Perhaps that was the cruelest part of all.

And so, it was with memories of Myrcella swirling in his mind, that he gazed down upon the injured direwolf and thought of another long-dead child of his. This was, no doubt, the wolf that had caused all the trouble, all those years ago.

Arya Stark’s direwolf.

He couldn’t remember the name, but how many direwolves could there really be? It was the only direwolf that had not been accounted for, and so it must be the wolf that now lay at the ground at his feet.

Then he heard sobbing, and looked up to see Brienne and the girl-who-was-not-Arya walking across the courtyard, towards the Great Hall.

The girl that Brienne had found cowered at the sight of the beast, even as it lay collapsed on the ground in front of them.

Apparently the day could get worse.

“That’s-that’s _her_ ,” she said shakily. “The ghost-wolf of the Riverlands.”

Jaime rolled his eyes.

He could not imagine what Brienne had been thinking. He had not accompanied his wife on her quest to find the Last Stark, considering that his duties as captain of the guard required he remain at Winterfell. If he had gone with her, he could have told her immediately this girl did not bare even the slightest resemblance to any Stark, let alone Arya. Her was brown, that was true, though it was more a mouse-brown than the rich dark brown that he remembered. Her eyes were blue; that much was wrong outright.

The girl, most likely orphaned during the war, must have grasped at the opportunity for a better life when she saw Brienne, and as many other young girls had done, had taken advantage of Brienne’s trust and naivety. He loved the woman, of course; in fact, her earnestness and trusting nature was something he both adored and found irritating. But Brienne lacked the insight to see that her actions had begun to cause more harm than good.

He wished, truthfully, that Brienne would have given up long ago. He had hoped the birth of their daughter might have put an end to these excursions, and it had for several years. But now that Joanna was five, she’d started her quest all over again.

“Where is her pack? She always travels with her pack.” The girl-who-was-not-Arya peered around the courtyard in fright.

A knight named Willard, who seemed to have come in with the wolf, spoke up. “There’s about twenty wolves on the outskirts of town. We’ve sent a troop to protect the villagers who live there, but truth be told, they seem harmless.”

“Am I to be fed to the wolves?” the girl asked, her eyes wide with fear. She had started to shake. “As punishment?”

The girl was far too thick, even for a Stark. Add that to the list of obvious reasons she wasn’t Arya.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jaime said. “Lord Jon prefers the sword.”

The girl quivered and started to cry.

“Jaime,” Brienne chided. “She doesn’t understand you’re joking.”

The captain of the guard sighed. “My apologies, my lady. I merely thought my wit might have preceded me.” He turned a wary eye towards Brienne.

“If frightening young girls is what passed for wit, these days, I wouldn’t be boasting.”

Jaime frowned and looked away. It wasn’t worth starting an argument in front of everyone. “If the girl is so frightened, please carry on.” He gestured towards the Great Hall.

 “Come with me, child.” Brienne held out her arm, which the still-shivering girl clutched as they left the courtyard.

Lord Jon and Lady Sansa arrived just as Brienne and the girl-who-was-not-Arya disappeared.

“What do we have here?” Jon said, eying the direwolf.

“Your guess is likely better than mine, my lord,” Jaime said. “But if I had to guess, I’d say it appears the last direwolf has returned to Winterfell.”

“Nymeria,” Sansa said. The Lady’s eyes glistened, but he knew he would not see any tears.

No one spoke for a moment.

“What would you like to do?” Jaime asked, finally.

“Take her to the kennel, see if Marten can’t treat her wounds.”

Ghost, Shaggydog and Summer appeared all at once. As they approached, the new wolf raised her head. Her tail twitched slightly.

The injured wolf seemed excited by their presence, but Jaime felt a heavy sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach. The presence of Shaggydog and Summer would no doubt remind Lady Sansa that the direwolves had only returned after the news that her brothers had left this world. And she would likely conclude the same fate had befallen her sister.

Then again, perhaps that was for the better.

“Well.” He could tell by the tone of Lady Sansa’s voice what she would say next. “We know what this means.”

She looked at Jon pointedly.

“We know nothing,” Jon said. His jaw was set and defiance gleamed in his eyes in a way that only Lord Jon could get away with in front of Lady Sansa.

“I think it’s a fair conclusion, considering the other circumstances.”

“She is still alive,” Jon said. “I can… I can sense it.”

“And how is that? How can you sense it?”

Here Jon was at a loss for words. “I just know.”

“Ser Jaime,” Sansa said. A scowl twisted the corners of her mouth. “Tell Brienne. No more girls. No more Arya lookalikes. I will permit this mummer’s farce no longer.”

Jaime nodded. “Yes, my lady.”

Jon and Sansa continued towards the Great Hall, and the lion watched the backs of the wolves as they went. It was strange, how life could turn out. His stump panged slightly, and so he dismissed the troops for the day and followed everyone else to the Great Hall.

\--

Winterfell.

Harwin stopped his horse in the middle of the road the moment he saw the castle towers rise over the hills.

Home.

For several moments, he was as still as the stone that composed those towers.

When he had left, all those years ago, it was with high hopes and an excitement for adventure. Until then, he’d spent all his life at Winterfell. A long journey on the Kingsroad, through the Neck, and the Riverlands, only to arrive in King’s Landing—it had sounded like something from a song. How little he’d known back then. He hadn’t been much older than Gendry was now, really. And so much had happened since.

“Harwin?”

He blinked back the tears blurring his vision. Cat sat on her horse beside him squinting.

“Is that it then?” Her voice was just a hollow whisper.

“That’s it.”

They both sat in silence. Lem passed between them.

“Come on. We’re almost there. And I’m not turning around.”

It took them half a day to close the rest of the distance and reach the Winter Town. Harwin could still see, in his mind’s eye, his last view of Winterfell. It had been late summer then, before even the first hints of winter. He’d mounted his horse in the courtyard of the castle, and his little nephew, Merrick, had run along as the guard progressed through town, passing rows of mostly empty houses.

The houses, constructed of log and undressed stone, looked much as he remembered, albeit somewhat cleaner, newer. But now, as they made their way through the muddy streets, he could tell that every other house must have been occupied. Children darted through the streets, deftly avoiding the steps of the horse’s hooves. Mothers followed shortly after, calling after the children, chastising them, all while balancing baskets overflowing with produce against their hips. When they reached the marketplace, Harwin was shocked to see everyone wooden stall was occupied.

It didn’t take him long to figure out why. Repairing the castle had required much work. Even in the Riverlands, Harwin had heard the rumors and whispers of the damage that first Theon Greyjoy and then Ramsay Bolton had inflicted on the heart of the north. It had taken years to repair it, and he could see they were still doing work. The need for workers had filled the streets of the Winter Town.

“Sometimes good can come of bad things,” he murmured to himself.

“Sir!” bellowed a man from somewhere below. Harwin looked down into the face of a member of the guard. “Stop! No horses beyond this point.”

Looking back towards the market, Harwin could guess why. The alleys between the vendors were narrow and teeming with shoppers.

“Of course.”

Harwin directed his horse to turn around.

“Uncle?”

He looked back at the guard, who was now squinting up towards him.

“Uncle Harwin?”

“The Others take me!” Harwin laughed as he dismounted from his horse. Feet on the ground, he now looked up into the eyes of the guard—his nephew, Merrick. “Merrick! Is that really you?”

They hugged right there in the street, and Harwin once again struggled to hold back tears.

“Look at you—a member of the guard.” He couldn’t help but smile as he glanced over his nephew’s armor.

“Just like my Uncle Harwin,” the boy responded, grinning back.

“Where is your mother?” Harwin asked, glancing around the marketplace.

“She works at the inn now.” Merrick looked up at the rest of their party. “Might I be introduced to your new friends here?”

“Of course,” Harwin said, glancing back to see Gendry, Cat and Lem follow suit and dismount from their horses. “This is my nephew, Merrick.”

“Name’s Lem,” said Lem, crossing his arms and looking bored.

“Gendry Waters.” Gendry bowed his head awkwardly.

“Best smith I ever met,” Harwin said to Merrick.

“You don’t say?” Merrick’s eyes lit up. “The castle’s much in need of a new smith. Old Waldron is… well… getting a bit old.”

“And this here is…”

Merrick’s face fell as he laid eyes on Cat. “Don’t tell me.” The young guard glanced side to side, then pulled his uncle to the shoulder of the road.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve found ‘the Last Stark’?”

Harwin didn’t know what to say.

“The Starks have had enough of these imposters, and—”

Harwin couldn’t bear the look of disappointment on his nephew’s face. Especially when it wasn’t warranted.

“It’s her, Merrick. Trust me.”

“That’s what they all say.” Merrick shook his head.

“And I doubt that any of them knew what they were talking about. I was with Arya Stark when I left Winterfell, don’t you forget.”

“If anyone could find her, uncle, I’m sure it would be you. But… Lady Sansa… They aren’t seeing anymore lookalikes. They’re tired of being disappointed.”

“Merrick, I swear on your grandfather’s grave, Arya Stark stands before you now. So tell me what I need to do to reunite this lost little girl with her family.”

Merrick looked back at the girl standing in the middle of the street. She was talking to the tall one—the man who introduced himself as Gendry. Mud covered her boots, her travelling clothes were covered in dirt—and was that blood?—and as he watched, she punched Gendry in the arm.

“Doesn’t seem very lady like,” Merrick muttered.

“If you remembered Arya Stark at all…”

“Don’t patronize me. I sometimes used to play at swords with Arya when we were kids.” Merrick sighed and looked back towards the castle. “Maester Samwell will see you. Tell him I sent you. But don’t attract attention to yourselves. Lay low, give her a cloak or something.”

“Thanks, lad.” Harwin grinned again. “Your mother raised you well.”

“Speaking of mother—let’s get you settled at the inn.”

The inn was twice as large as Harwin remembered it—the Winter Town had prospered well indeed during the reconstruction of Winterfell. As it was midday, the inn was mostly empty, but he could hear noise from the kitchen suggesting the cooks were busy preparing a large supper.

Merrick disappeared in the back to find his mother, who burst from the kitchen in seconds.

“Harwin!” she cried, flinging herself into his arms. “I didn’t believe him at first, I didn’t. But here you are then.”

“It’s good to see you too, Nellie.”

His sister pulled back suddenly and slapped him on the arm. “We thought the worst…”

“Pah! It takes more than a few Lannister dogs to bring me down.”

Merrick looked over his shoulder. “Be careful what you say,” he said quietly. “Jaime Lannister is the captain of the guards here.”

“The Kingslayer?”

“Shh!” Nellie now also looked over her shoulder. “The captain has been in a foul mood all week, ever since that direwolf arrived.” She turned to Merrick. “Do you want to get put on duty at the Broken Tower?”

“Much has changed, uncle,” Merrick said. “But supper is close at hand—perhaps we could catch up then?”

“Indeed. I look forward to it. I have been gone from home for too long.” Harwin sighed.

“But where have you been all this time, then?” Nellie asked.

“He’s brought back the Last Stark, mum,” said Merrick, appearing from the kitchen with an apple in hand.

Nellie turned and looked at Cat.

“The Others take me…”  Her face had gone as white as if she’d seen an Other. “Arya Stark.” She shook her head. “It would play out like this, of course.”

“What do you mean?” Cat asked.

“The Starks aren’t seeing any more lookalikes,” Merrick said.

“She’s not a lookalike,” said Harwin.

“As it were. They won’t be seeing you, though.”

“Merrick,” Nellie chastised. “Go to Maester Samwell. He’ll see you. But lay low. Don’t draw attention to yourselves.”

“We’ve heard,” Harwin said wryly.

Nellie and Merrick had to return to work, but they introduced Harwin and his friends to the innkeeper before leaving. The horses went to the stable and their packs were dropped on the floor of their rooms, and they headed up the hill towards the castle.

“Maester Samwell?” Lem said through the corner of his mouth as they made their way to the Maester’s Turret. “We need to get her in front of Jon Snow and Lady Sansa.”

“Patience,” Harwin said.  “Look, how did we know that Arya was still alive? No doubt we’re not the only ones who’ve heard the rumors. Imagine the number of people who come here, claiming they’ve found the Last Stark. I’m sure this is all part of the protocol. If we can convince the maester—and I’m sure we can—we’ll get an audience with the Starks. Trust me. We’ll be fine.”

\--

They were _not_ fine. Gendry glanced about the maester’s room nervously.

Sure, so far, the interview seemed to be going well—Cat had nailed all the questions regarding the family tree, and she’d held herself with a grace he hadn’t thought she was capable of—and yet, as he watched the maester’s face, a bad feeling had formed in the pit of his stomach.

Something wasn’t right.

“Well, my lady,” Maester Samwell said, “I must say, you’ve answered every question more accurately than even I could, and I have known Lord Jon for a long time. But—and forgive my impertinence, but we must know—how did you escape King’s Landing?”

 _Bloody hell_. Alarm bells went off inside Gendry’s head. He glanced quickly towards Harwin, who did not return his gaze. Had they even gone over this with Cat? He racked his brain, but he couldn’t remember. They had covered the Stark family tree, the nobles of Westeros, manners, even how to dance—but had they ever told her how she had left King’s Landing?

Maybe it wouldn’t be a problem. There could be a number of ways she could have escaped. Maester Samwell might not know King’s Landing well enough to second guess her. And Cat was good at landing on her feet—she could think up something on the spot, couldn’t she? As long as she seemed confident, he’d have to believe her. Right?

But Gendry didn’t believe that. This was it. This was the thing that was destined to go wrong.

“I was at my dancing lesson…” he heard Cat say.

He couldn’t watch. He looked away, towards the door, wondering how many seconds it would be until Maester Samwell kicked them out of his study.

“…no, it wasn’t dancing. It was water dancing. The Braavosi way. It was… sword fighting. And my teacher, he kept the guards away while I… while I escaped.”

She sounded amazed, even as she spoke. Like she didn’t even believe the words that came from her mouth.

“There was a passageway, where they kept the dragon heads. It took me outside the castle, to the marketplace. And then a man came and he cut my hair, and he dressed me like a boy, and I left with the Night’s Watch.”

Gendry looked up.

No, they hadn’t told her that. He was sure of it. He hadn’t told Cat much of what happened between King’s Landing and the Brotherhood Without Banners because… well, he just hadn’t.

“The Night’s Watch?” Maester Samwell asked, frowning.

“Well we never got out of the Riverlands,” she said quickly. “Some of the King’s men came looking for…” She cocked her head to the side and Gendry saw her head turn, ever so slightly, towards him. But she didn’t look at him. “All I can remember is a fort… and a fire… and a bull’s helmet…”

Here she frowned and rubbed her temple.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “This must sound so crazy.”

 _The Others take me_ , Gendry thought, not realizing that his jaw had dropped and that he slightly resembled his nickname. _We actually found her. It’s actually her._

He looked again at Harwin, but the man wouldn’t have known that any of what Cat—of what _Arya_ —had just said was actually true.

“You don’t sound crazy,” Maester Samwell said. “Many terrible things happened during those times.”

“So we can see Lord Jon and Lady Sansa?” Lem asked.

Maester Samwell sighed. “Unfortunately, no. The Lady Sansa will see no more girls claiming to be Arya.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Lem!” Harwin said.

“No, we came all the way from _Saltpans_ —why did you even listen to us, if you knew the Lord Snow wouldn’t see us?” Gendry saw how the maester’s gaze darkened when he heard Lem say “Lord Snow.”

“Forgive my friend here,” Harwin said quickly. “Though it _has_ been a long trip, that’s no excuse for such an outburst. But you must understand our position—surely there’s something you can do…?”

The maester sighed. “As it turns out, the Lady Brienne is somewhat… out of favor for the time being, and Lord Jon lacks a good sparring partner. He is always looking for a worthy opponent.” Maester Samwell cast a glance towards Gendry. “Perhaps you could help him?”

Gendry heard Arya snicker and felt an impending sense of dread.

Maester Samwell did not seem to notice. “Lord Jon practices at sun rise.” He stood. “Just be careful. Many girls have come through these halls claiming to be someone they’re not. Lord Jon and I are very close. I’d hate to see him upset.”

“Thank you, Maester Samwell,” Harwin said.

“We’ve several hours before supper time,” said the maester after a quick glance towards the window. “I recommend laying low for the time being. If you truly want to thank me, avoid drawing any attention to yourselves until tomorrow morning.”

\--

Cat wanted to see everything. She had insisted, the moment that the door had shut behind them, that Harwin give them a tour of the grounds.

The interview had put her in good spirits. Every question the maester had asked, she’d been able to answer without hesitation. And that last question… she wasn’t sure how she knew it. She wasn’t sure if maybe the… talent… she had with animals, and being able to see them, somehow also helped her know things she shouldn’t know. It had helped her many times during her years with the Faceless Men, which, when they came to mind, seemed to have happened to someone else entirely.

But somehow, something about the interview made her think, maybe, she really was Arya. Maybe she had finally come home. Maybe she finally had a name.

And that was why she needed to see the rest of the castle. Something had triggered the “memory”—if that was what it was—and maybe a tour of the castle would help her remember more. If, she reminded herself, if she was Arya Stark.

“You heard what the maester told us,” he said as they left the Maester’s Turret. “We need to lay low.”

“But _look_ at this place,” Cat said, waving her arm around to encompass the courtyard. “I need to see it. Please.”

With a sigh, Harwin agreed, though he insisted it would be a short tour.

He led them through the armory first, where Cat and Gendry paused to admire the swords. Since it was midday, and peacetime, the room was mostly empty, and no one was there to stop Gendry from picking up one of the swords.

“Not bad,” he said as his fingers traced the hilt.

Cat frowned. “You could do better,” she said, picking up another sword.

“Put those down!” Harwin insisted, grabbing the sword from Gendry and putting it back.

Cat followed suit with a shrug. “I was just saying.”

As they left the armory and headed towards the godswood, she added, “Maybe, if I _am_ Arya, they’ll reward you by hiring you as the new blacksmith.”

But when she smiled at him, he frowned. “Sure. Maybe.” Then he turned away and continued into the godswood.

 _Stupid bull_.

But she wouldn’t allow him to ruin her tour.

And the godswood was… she couldn’t even think of the word. It just felt right. Her feet took her straight to the heart tree. She sat there for a long time, staring across the pool of black water towards the face carved in the trunk. The wind rustled the leaves and she thought she might have heard someone whisper a name. “Arya.”

But when she looked over her shoulder, she found she was alone.

Thinking she better find Harwin, and feeling a little uneasy for the first time since they’d arrived, she continued through the godswood.

She found her companions in the glass garden. From there, they passed the entrance to the crypts, but did not go in—Harwin insisted that that was drawing the line, that if they were caught in the crypts, a sacred place to the Starks, they would not be forgiven, and they would ruin any chances they had at an audience with Lord Jon and Lady Sansa.

They moved on throughout the grounds until they reached the Broken Tower. Cat watched as the masons worked to hoist heavy stones up to the top of the tower. She watched them lay the cement paste over the stones. She watched them carefully align each stone as they placed it. The process took longer than she would have imagined, but the masons were precise, and of course, that’s why the castle had stood for thousands of years.

The tour ended at the Great Hall, just as the sun was setting. Perfectly timed for supper.

Cat paused and stared up at the large oak and iron doors. That bell went off inside her head. She had a sudden vision of walking through those doors, a girl with red hair in front of her, arm in arm with a tall blond boy…

But then she realized the bell she was hearing came from the Bell Tower. Supper time, it said with each ring.

“Come on then,” Harwin said. “We ought to get back to the Inn.”

“But…” She looked back up at the large oak doors.

“We’ve seen enough. We ought to lay low.”

And with that, they turned their backs towards the Great Hall and returned to the Winter Town.

\--

Eight years. Eight long, bitter years, he’d waited. And hoped. And he’d replayed the moment in his head, what he might say to Arya if he ever saw her again.

And here she was. Smiling at him in the armory. Joking with him.

And all he could say was, “Sure. Maybe.”

What a stupid, stubborn bull he was.

But what else could he say? It was like he was back in the Riverlands again, and she was going on about how he could be a smith for her brother. It was exactly the same.

He’d only just found her, and now he was going to lose her again.

Lady Sansa would not permit her sister to spend time with the smith. In fact, no doubt she’d soon arrange a marriage for her. The Last Stark would have her choice of a husband, he could imagine. Some rich noble. Like that Ned Dayne character. Yes, yes, of course it would be Ned. Stupid Ned.

It sickened him to think of it.

Just as it sickened him to watch her now.

The moment they stepped through the castle gates and entered the Winter Town, Arya’s face turned to stone, and he thought she could pass for one of the statues in the crypt that Harwin had mentioned on their tour. Within mere moments, the giddy girl eager to see the castle had transformed into the unreadable assassin they’d met in Saltpans so many weeks ago.

He couldn’t say with any certainty whether he had ever seen nervousness twist the features of his friend Arry. She hadn’t seemed nervous when she was beating up Hot Pie the first time he saw her. She hadn’t seemed nervous when they’d escaped from Harrenhal, or when she’d yelled at the Hound when he fought Lord Beric. Nervous and Arya were simply two words that did not belong in the same sentence.

But he saw how she drank cup after cup of ale, how her masked expression melted into a frown, how her fingers kneaded the fabric of her shirt.

If she didn’t stop drinking, she’d be a mess in the morning, and it would ruin everything.

“You should get some rest, m’lady.”

Arya glared at him from over the top of her third cup of wine. She said nothing; she finished the cup and wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

“I’m quite enjoying myself. I think I’ll stay.”

Gendry rolled his eyes.

“Come on,” he said, rising. “We’ve got to be up early in the morning.”

“You mean _you’ve_ got to be up early in the morning,” she said, remaining in her seat. She slammed the empty cup onto the table. “The party is only beginning. Look. The music is starting. Perhaps I’ll join the dance.”

Harwin looked over, hearing the noise she’d made even from halfway across the table. The former member of Winterfell’s guard had spent the evening reminiscing with his sister and nephew. But when he overheard Arya’s words, he caught Gendry’s eyes. Whatever Lem liked to say, Gendry was smart enough to read the message Harwin was trying to send him.

“Maester Samwell said we needed to lay low,” Gendry said quietly. “I don’t imagine dancing would please him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she drawled, grabbing another cup as the serving wench passed. “He already told us where to find Lord Jon.”

Gendry grabbed the cup from her hand just as she raised it to her lips. The glare she sent him this time would have made even a brave man cower. But Gendry didn’t flinch. Instead, an idea came to him.

“Yes—Lord Jon.” He lowered his voice. “I’m going to have to duel him in the morning, you know.”

At this, her glare dissolved into a smirk. “I’m sure that will be the duel of the century.”

“Look—are you going to make me ask it? You know I’m not the best with a sword, and I was wondering if…”

She nodded smugly. “Say no more, Ser Bull.” Gendry decided he did not like drunk Arya. “I shall teach you all you need to know.”

She rose from the bench and clumsily stepped over it. If Gendry didn’t know better, he would have considered her current behavior evidence that she _wasn’t_ his long lost friend. But there was no doubt in his mind that this was her, so he put his arm under hers and escorted her out of the hall.

“It might not be so bad, though,” she said. He waited for her to continue as they climbed the stairs to the rooms.

“What wouldn’t be so bad?” he asked.

She looked away and didn’t answer. They were halfway up the stairs when she finally spoke.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if we got thrown out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, I just…”

She staggered out from under his arm.

“You’re just nervous.”

She whirled to face him and the words bubbled out from her lips like hot water. “What if I’m not her? And all of this will have been a… a mummer’s farce? An exercise in futility? And I’ll just make them angry, and I still won’t know who I am?”

“Listen, you _are_ —”

“But then what if I _am_ Arya Stark? Then what does that mean? What happens to me? I don’t even like wearing dresses. And all that etiquette nonsense. I’m not … I’m not a _noblewoman_. Look at me. Would a lady dress like this?”

She gestured towards her breeches, her ruffled tunic, her messy braid.

“I can think of a lady that would,” he said quietly.

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know any ladies.”

“As you say, m’lady.”

“Don’t start that with me now.”

“As m’lady commands.”

She shoved him as hard as she could, but only succeeded in moving him a step or two to the side. Then she crossed her arms and they finished the rest of the walk in silence.

Gendry spent that time trying to decide what to tell her. The words whirled about inside his head like the dancing flames of a fire. Part of him wanted to say, “Of course we can leave. Let’s leave right now.” And he could have her then, if no one knew her real name. She could be his. But another part of him knew that would not be the right thing to do. For as long as he’d known Arry, all she had wanted was to get home to her family. To be reunited with her brother Jon.

And as they reached the door to her room, the words finally came to him.

 “Listen,” he said, stopping in front of her bedroom door. “Finding your family—that’s all that matters. The rest of it? The dresses, the etiquette, the politics—it won’t matter because you’ll know that you’re home.”

She looked down at the floor. “What if they don’t want me?” she said so quietly, he thought he might have imagined it.

“They’d be fools not to want you.”

Her eyes glanced up towards him, and there was something else there beyond fear and worry.

And then she threw up on his feet.

With a sigh, he guided into her room. She passed out on her bed within seconds of laying down.

On his way out the door, he nearly tripped over her pack. Cursing quietly to himself, he looked down and saw the glint of metal in the moonlight. Needle. The tiny sword was only just poking out of the pack. When he reached down to move it, it caught the moonlight through the window and reality smacked him across the face like the blow of a hammer.

All those years, he’d wondered what he could have done, what he shouldn’t have said, what he should have said, to prevent his friend from running away. He could have been a smith for her brother, he’d told himself during the harder nights, when nightmares had showed him the variety of fates that may have befallen her—maybe she had been slain in the Red Wedding, maybe she’d been eaten by wolves, maybe the Hound had killed her when her mother and brother had died and there was no one to pay her ransom. Becoming a member of the Brotherhood Without Banners—especially with the hindsight of what the group had eventually become—had not been worth losing his good friend Arry.

But all those years of worrying and of wondering what he might say upon their reunion had all been for naught, because there was only one destiny for Arya Stark, and there always had been. And Gendry Waters did not belong in it.

 


	10. The Pack Survives

 

Silence reigned over the Winter Town when Gendry woke an hour before dawn. Though it was winter, a chill permeated the air, and he waited under his blankets, staring at the ceiling. He had lain that way for hours, knew every grain and crack in the ceiling above, and wished perhaps he had spent the last few weeks differently.

But he had made his decision, and it now sat on the bedside table next to him. Arya’s sword: Needle.

He had taken it from her room the night before. How else could they get Jon Snow’s attention? Once, a very long time ago, his friend Arry had told him the story of how her bastard brother Jon Snow had given her the greatest gift she’d ever received.

Gathering his resolve, he finally rose from the bed. He dressed quickly, sheathing Arya’s sword in his belt, and left his room just as Harwin’s timid knock on Arya’s door broke the morning quiet.

They had drawn straws the previous night to determine who would have to wake Arya, and, as he did every time he was spared the duty, he thanked all the gods he knew of. But especially on this morning in particular.

He doubted that she would notice her sword had gone missing, considering the state she’d been in last night. Nevertheless, he intended to slip from the inn without seeing her. He hurried past, nodding hello at a weary-faced Harwin, and made his way to the kitchen.

One of the servants had already started preparing breakfast, so he grabbed two rolls of bread and waited for Harwin in the hall.

It didn’t take long. Looking tired and frazzled, Harwin hurried into the hall only several moments after Gendry had sat down.

“Lem will bring her up to the castle around dawn. It should give us enough time to talk to Lord Snow beforehand.”

Gendry nodded and took a bit of bread.

“Better suit up,” Harwin said softly, taking the roll that Gendry held out for him.

“I’m ready to go,” Gendry answered, standing. “Come on, we can eat on the way.”

Leaving Arya in the dubious care of Lem, Harwin and Gendry exited the inn and entered the crisp air. The street was dark and empty, and in the distance, Gendry could see the faint outline of the castle, backlit by the low moon.

“How was she this morning?” Gendry asked, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb the pre-dawn quiet.

“Same way she is every morning.”

“Dagger to the throat, scoff when she realizes who it is.”

“She only scoffs at you.”

Gendry smiled, despite himself.

“You seem in good spirits,” Harwin said. “You have heard of Lord Jon’s skills in combat, haven’t you?”

“I’m not worried.”

Harwin looked Gendry over, squinting at him in the early morning darkness, and he paused his gaze on the small blade sheathed at Gendry’s side. “That makes one of us. You’re not going to fight with that, are you?”

Gendry laughed  loudly, and Harwin sent him a look. It was still dark, after all.

“Of course not!” He said, lowering his voice. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“Well, if Cat was here, she’d say…”

“Arya.”

“Pardon?”

“Her name is Arya. And this is her sword.” He unsheathed the blade as he spoke. “Needle. And you…” he paused and pointed at Harwin with the sword. “…have nothing to worry about.”

Harwin pushed the blade aside. “What have I been telling you all this time?”

“That you weren’t sure if it was her.  That you _wanted_ it to be her. That you’re nervous.”

“I’m only nervous because you’re about to face Jon Snow, and you don’t seem to be taking it seriously.”

“I’m not going to fight the Lord of Winterfell,” Gendry said patiently. “When he sees this, he won’t want to fight. He’ll want to see her.”

The wind picked up slightly, and Gendry shivered. “I thought it was summer,” he muttered.

“This is warm for summer,” Harwin said. “It usually snows.”

“In the summer?”

“Yes.” Harwin chuckled to see Gendry’s look of surprise. “Mayhaps you’d be warmer with your armor on.”

“I don’t need armor. I have this.” Gendry tapped the sword before sheathing it once more.

Harwin eyed the sword skeptically. They walked the streets in silence for awhile. Candlelight flickered in some of the homes as families prepared to break their fast. When they were halfway to the castle gates, Harwin spoke.

“So what made you change your mind?”

“The story she told Maester Samwell. Did I ever tell you how I met Arya?” Gendry asked. Harwin shook his head. “We were leaving King’s Landing, when I saw two boys—one of them was Hot Pie—picking on this little kid. I only noticed because I heard the kid say something about castle-forged steel… he was waving this sword around…”

He tapped the hilt of the blade as he spoke.

“They tried to take it from him, and a fight broke out. That little kid broke Hot Pie’s nose and gave him such a beating he couldn’t stand for a week. Only I found out a few weeks later, that kid wasn’t a boy—it was a girl. It was Arya Stark. A guard from the Night’s Watch had cut her hair to make her look like a boy, so he could smuggle her from King’s Landing.”

Harwin was silent for a moment. “So the story she told the maester…”

“I never mentioned it to ‘Cat’ since she showed up in Saltpans. She remembered it herself.”

When Gendry looked up from the sword and back at Harwin, though it was yet dark, he could see tears filling his old friend’s eyes.

“So then our Cat… has finally found her way home.”

“I just have to convince the Lord to see her.”

Now Harwin looked back at the sword. “But how…”

“She said it was castle-forged steel.” He held the sword up for Harwin to get a better look. “She lost it when we were imprisoned in Harrenhal.”

“Imprisoned in Harrenhal…”

“It’s not something I prefer to remember,” he said with a shrug. “She told me, sometime after we escaped, what the sword meant to her. Her brother had given it to her. Her brother Jon.”

Harwin nodded. Gendry handed him the sword and watched as Harwin looked it over. He knew what Harwin would see. In fact, he had counted on it.

“Mikken’s mark,” Harwin said, a hint of awe to his tone.

“Mikken was the blacksmith, I wager,” Gendry said, smirking.

“Yes, was…” Harwin handed Needle back just as they turned a corner, and the castle gates came into view at the end of the road. “And after you’ve reunited your friend Arry with her family…?”

“I’ll walk out of her life, forever.”

Gendry kept his gaze forward, towards the castle gates. He could not look at the surprise on Harwin’s face, but he could imagine what it looked like, how it would twist into worry.

“But after all this time…” Harwin said quietly.

“Ladies don’t marry bastards.”

Harwin sighed, but Gendry saw him nod out of the corner of his eye. In fact, he even looked a little relieved. “What will you do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe go east, to the Free Cities. My master, Tobho Mott, studied in Qohor. Maybe it’s time I followed in his footsteps.”

\--

The clanging of the swords could be heard across the courtyard, but to Jon, nothing could drown out the sounds of Sansa’s yelling, which had echoed in his head for days.

“I know she’s still alive, Sansa.”

“You know nothing! It’s been eight years. If she was still alive, she’d have come home by now.”

He swung a little harder than was necessary, and his blade hit his opponent’s armor with a loud clang. The man grunted and staggered back.

How could she accuse him of ignorance? Of course he understood. He’d suffered the same pain she had, when he’d learned of the death of their brothers. And he’d suffered the same pain every time a new girl arrived, claiming to be Arya, only to be an imposter.

But that didn’t mean they should give up.

He swung again, this time hitting his opponent’s overextended arm. The man dropped his sword. Too easy.

With the end of the spar, the argument from the night before returned full force.

“I will not see another girl claiming to be our sister. If you—or Brienne—bring back another girl…”

“You’ll what?”

“Don’t test me, Jon Snow.”

She was probably bluffing. This was Sansa, after all. He’d never seen her hurt a fly. But he also knew that something had happened after Jaimie and Brienne had rescued her from the Vale, and even Jaimie Lannister, the Kingslayer himself, sometimes looked at Sansa with an expression resembling… well, if not fear, the recognition that Sansa was quite capable of making life difficult.

Plus, there was also the fact that when she’d delivered those words— _don’t test me, Jon Snow_ —she’d never looked or sounded more like her mother. And he’d never felt more like a child.

But most likely she was bluffing.

There was another matter, of course, that complicated the situation. Jon Snow _did_ know something. Despite Sansa’s protestations, he would wager Ghost that Arya was still alive. In fact, it was because of Ghost. Ghost knew. Ghost had known with Robb, and Bran, and Rickon. But how could he explain that to Sansa, who had lost Lady so early?

Groaning, he thrust his sword into the ground and looked around.

“Where is that knight Sam sent me?”

There were five of them in the courtyard—Jon and four of the most skilled guardsmen. He’d defeated them easily. He’d have to speak to Jaimie about that. He wanted a challenge, and Sam had promised him a good fight—the best he’d have in a week.

“A huge… beast of a man,” Sam had said. “Looking for a place in the guard.”

“Why didn’t he go to Jaimie, then?” Jon had asked, tired from a long day’s work, and from arguing with Sansa for a week.

“I happened to bump into him, and I knew you were looking for a challenge. I told him to meet you at dawn.”

Jon didn’t know what to expect. He suspected that his maester was up to something—it wouldn’t be the first time. Often, he went along with Sam’s schemes because most of the time they were harmless and Jon would never stop feeling like he owed Sam. Plus, he couldn’t help but feel curious. Jon could never resent the feeling of safety that peacetime under Queen Daenerys had brought, but nevertheless… peacetime was, admittedly, a bit boring.

Just as the sun started to peak over the horizon, he looked up and spotted the fighter coming from the east gate. Silhouetted against the morning sun, the figure approached slowly, and Jon could not get a good look at him save for his size. _A beast of a man indeed_ , Jon thought. _You spoke true about that Sam. But does his skill match his height?_

Another man followed the fighter, but Jon paid him no mind, except to assume that it must be the knight’s squire. He was already thinking about the battle ahead, what moves he might use to bring down a man this size.

But, as the man approached, Jon soon realized that he was not wearing any armor. And then he spotted the small sword—a child’s sword, really—sheathed at the man’s side. Was this a joke?

“Good morning, sir,” Jon said. “Are you the fighter I am to be expecting?”

“Aye, m’lord,” said the knight. The only thing more awkward than the bow he gave was the sentence that followed it. “Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill, at your service.”

_Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill? This is a joke._

“Rise, Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill.” He was too angry and too tired for games. “Tell me, do you intend to fight with that… child’s toy?”

The knight, Ser Gendry, rose stiffly and unsheathed his sword.

“No, m’lord,” he said slowly, as if he had to weigh each word before speaking. “I am afraid I must apologize. I understand you were expecting to spar, but instead… I have brought you this. I hope it might make up for the disappointment.”

Ser Gendry stepped forward, head still bowed, and presented the tiny sword.

The realization came slowly, like the light of the rising sun that spilled out across the courtyard. He took the sword from the knight’s hands and looked it over. Yes, there it was. Mikken’s mark.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, breathlessly. This knight had struck a blow without raising an arm.

“From Arya Stark herself, m’lord.”

Jon narrowed his eyes as Sansa’s shouts from the night before still echoed in his mind like one of those annoying tunes the mummer’s sang.

“You’re on dangerous ground, ser,” he said sternly. “It has come to the attention of this household that Arya Stark is dead.”

“With all due respect, m’lord, that is not so.”

“It’s true, my lord,” said the squire, and Jon looked at him for the first time. “Your sister is alive.”

“Harwin!” The name fell from his lips so suddenly he surprised himself.

“It is good to see you again, my lord,” Harwin said. It was strange, how the man looked so much like how Jon remembered, and yet how different.

“What is this? What’s going on?” Now he could hear the voice of a different red-haired girl inside his head. _You know nothing, Jon Snow_.  “Where did you get this?”

“She’s always had it,” Ser Gendry said. “Why don’ t you ask her?”

The man was pointing back towards the east gate. A short woman approached, led by another tall man in a yellow cloak that flapped in the wind.

It did not take much to rattle Jon Snow. Yes, he had the occasional spat with Sansa, but that was different. The feeling that now overtook him—a potent, paralyzing combination of hope and disbelief—had not passed over him in recent memory; perhaps it never had. If he had ever hoped, if he had ever believed that Arya was still alive, none of that had prepared him for this moment. A hundred girls had likely passed through these halls, all claiming to be Arya, so what was it about this one that made him think there was even the smallest chance that it was really her?

He glanced back down at the sword, ran his finger along the blade. How many years had passed since he had last seen this sword? And yet it seemed so familiar to him, like greeting a friend he’d only seen yesterday.

When he looked back up, the girl stood right in front of him. She fidgeted in the gray dress she wore. It brought out the gray of her eyes. Jon knew those eyes. He knew them very well, for they were like his own.

He dropped the sword.

\--

Sansa sighed and leaned back in her chair. She rubbed her eyes, and not for the first time, thought of the lives that had better claim to this study than her. Robb. Bran. Rickon. They were the ones that should occupy this chair, not her.

“You’re the one most suited for it,” Jon had said, long ago, when they had discussed which of them would oversee the castle’s affairs.

He had found a way to get out of it. She envied him. She’d been awake throughout the entire evening, looking over the castle’s finances. Now, daylight broke over the castle walls. And the echo of clanging swords pounded in her head.

With another sigh, she stood and stretched and went to the window. The study could oversee the courtyard, and in the light of the rising sun, she watched as a tall figure approached the sparring pit. An older man followed close behind. Jon spoke with them for several minutes, and the man handed him something. Sansa couldn’t see what it was. And then Jon looked up and dropped what he was holding.

It was as though he’d seen a ghost.

Sansa followed his gaze, and the girl in the gray dress was enough. Sansa broke.

\--

“Wait here,” Lord Jon had said. He was practically bouncing. He beamed at her, then disappeared into the study.

As she waited, Cat looked around the hallway, at the blank stone composing the wall, the flickering torchlight in the sconces, the shadows that danced along the floor.

This man, this tall, pale man, had looked at her as though she were a phantom. And then a smile bloomed on his face, slowly, like a flower in the winter, hesitant to blossom but eager to see the sun’s rays. It was a beautiful smile.

But she did not remember it.

He thought he remembered her. He had practically dragged her across the courtyard; she blinked and she was here, outside a study in the keep. The man had been babbling the whole way, and she’d been too stunned to really pay attention.

“I have to talk to her first,” he’d said as they approached the door. “She’s going to be angry, but she’ll come around. Wait here.”

So she waited.

Beyond the door, sounds of thumping, yelling and even glass breaking confirmed the lord’s suspicions. Whoever “she” was, she _was_ indeed angry.

 Cat could be quiet as a mouse, though. So she crept up towards the door. And she listened.

\--

“…told you, Jon. I told you not to test my patience.” She was calm now. Jon did not like it when she was cold like this. Like the cold of the far north, the cold that burns.

“It’s really her this time,” he insisted, fire in his voice. He stepped toward her. “I swear, I’ve got the—where did it go?”

Sansa backed away, towards the window. She turned her back to him. “What did she have? What was it this time? What special trinket? A necklace that supposedly belonged to my mother? A bit of old needlework? Oh, no, I know—I saw it from up here. A dress embroidered with a howling wolf. They all have something, Jon. They all have some special relic, some signature Stark treasure. She’s fake, just like the rest of them. Did you even wait for her to speak before you dragged her up here? You can tell, just by looking then? A fancy they all couldn’t afford a talented seamstress. Then we’d have a whole family of Aryas.”

“Sansa, just let me…”

“No.”

“But the people down there…”

“Oh yes, who _are_ her rescuers? Desperate riverland folk who…”

Jon scowled. He understood why she was upset, but now she was going too far.

“They are knights.”

“Ha! Knights?” The incredulity in her voice made him clench his fists.

“Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill, and even—” He knew, as she interrupted him, how ridiculous the knight’s name was, that perhaps it hadn’t been a point worth arguing.

“Yes, you mentioned that name when you walked in. I’ve been trying to place it. I remember now. _He_ ’s one of those bandits I told you about.” She whirled around to face him, finally, and the full fury of the north swirled in her eyes. “The Brotherhood Without Banners. The ones who killed my mother. They will stop at nothing to …”

“It was the Freys who killed your mother, Sansa.” Jon’s voice sounded flat this time, even to his own ears.

“It was the Brotherhood Without Banners that pulled her decaying corpse from the river and tried to breathe life into that which ought to have rested in peace. It was the Brotherhood Without Banners that killed innocent men and women in my mother’s name. It was the Brotherhood Without Banners that _used_ my mother’s body as a justification for their violence.”

“That’s not what Brienne…”

“Don’t speak to me of Brienne. I _know_ that boy, Gendry, and I know what he did. I know they were going to ransom my sister. I know that the Brotherhood _let my sister be kidnapped_. Now they appear with a girl claiming to be Arya?”

“If you would just look at her, you would know…”

Jon crossed the room in several long strides and, desperate, slammed open the door to reveal the girl waiting behind it.

But there was no one there.

\--

Cat could not remember crying. No one cried. No one wept. No one sobbed or sniffled or whimpered.

But now she could hardly see for the tears blurring her vision. She stumbled down the stairs, feeling a fool, feeling guilty and hopeless and lost.

She did not know how she found the door, but when she shoved it open, something else blocked her way.

Gendry.

She collided into him and nearly fell over, but he grabbed her arm and steadied her.

“You!” she yelled, wrenching her arm away. She shoved him and this time he stepped back. “How could you?”

She hated the stupid look on his face then. Like he didn’t know what he had done. She shoved him again.

“Arya, I…”

“Stupid bull! You can stop pretending. You killed their mother, and then you brought me here, pretending that I’m their long lost sister. You’re sick. And to think… that I almost believed…”

“What happened in there?”

He touched her arm again. He looked so concerned. So worried. That what? He wouldn’t get his money?

“You’ll have to find some other way to get rich,” she said, scoffing.

She shoved his hand away, and, sending him one last look of disgust, she raced away across the courtyard.

\--

Sansa had never felt so angry. Not in her whole life. And she’d experienced plenty worse. She felt dizzy with wrath. She felt sick.

“I’m sorry, Jon. But I can’t… excuse me. I have to clear my head.”

She pushed past him and left the room. And she prayed he would not follow.

He did not follow her to the courtyard, or across the castle grounds, or to the stable. He did not follow her as she rode her horse through the castle gates and out into the woods.

Her horse galloped of the lands of the north. The lands of her people. The lands of her family. The wind brushed through her hair—the only brush that tangled it worse. But she didn’t care. She needed to feel the wind sting her face, to push tears from her eyes so it streamed back into her hair.

And then he was following her. She could hear his horse thundering behind her, hear the brush and bracken crackle under its heavy hooves.

“Enough, Jon. Leave me be.”

“It’s not Jon.”

She steered her horse around and saw him, and the blood in her veins boiled and steamed like dragon’s breath.

“You have three seconds to leave before I…”

“Before what? Before you call your guards on me? What guards?”

“They’ll come soon enough. And when they do, I’ll have you—and your friend—thrown into the dungeon.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“You threaten the Lady of Winterfell?”

“Please.” He sounded almost as desperate as she felt for him to leave. “You have to talk to her.”

“I remember you,” she said, quietly, but still severe. “I’ve heard your name. Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill. Brienne spoke often of you. She told me everything you’ve done.”

“How I saved her life?”

“No.”

His gaze faltered, and he looked down at the ground. “It’s true,” he said finally. “I’ve done terrible things, in the service of your mother.”

Now it was Sansa’s turn to flinch.

“She was not my mother then. You … your brotherhood of bandits… you had corrupted her body…”

“Do not hold my crimes against this girl. Do not let my crimes prevent you from being reunited with your sister.”

Sansa was tired of arguing. And she no longer knew what to say.

“Don’t you think it’s possible that she’s hurting just as much as you are?”

“You will stop at nothing, then.” Her voice was so quiet, she could barely hear it herself.

“I’m probably about as stubborn as Arya.”

\--

Cat kicked at the ground. She threw a rock into the dark pool even though she knew it was wrong to disturb it. She wanted to rip the whole godswood down. She didn’t care if they threw her in the dungeons. Nothing was left for her. She’d gambled all she had, thinking maybe this journey to Winterfell would help her find her family, help her find out who she was. Instead she’d just been used in some greater game. She’d been used.

What would the kindly man think of her now? She, who had been a silent but competent master, had become a pawn.

“You will disturb the old gods with such a racket. At the very least, you will disturb the wolves.”

Cat whirled so quickly she nearly fell over. The Lady of Winterfell stood before her, and as Cat dropped to the ground in a kneel, she saw only a halo of red hair floating like fire around the lady’s head. Then her gaze had fallen to the soft ground before her, and she saw nothing but the black shine of the lady’s riding boots.

“My lady,” she said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I will leave…”

“The godswood has always provided me comfort,” the lady said slowly. “I would not begrudge another the same peace, if that is what you seek here.”

“Yes, my lady. It is all I have ever sought.”

The lady was quiet. Cat watched the boots disappear from vision, and then she heard a rustle of skirts as Lady Sansa plopped to the ground.

Cat decided it wouldn’t be impolite to follow suit, and so took a spot next to the lady by the pool. Across the black water, two eyes stared back at her.

The wolf.

The creature cocked its head to the side as it looked at her.

“My lady…” Cat said, swallowing. “I… I didn’t know all that they had done. I didn’t know who they were.”

“Tell me,” Lady Sansa said. She, too, watched the wolf as it walked around the pond, towards them. “Why _are_ you here?”

Cat remained silent as the wolf came closer. Was this the wolf from her dreams? She closed her eyes, and wished herself away, the way she had done so many times before. And suddenly she was looking at herself from something else’s eyes.

She opened her own with a start.

Lady Sansa was watching her expectantly.

“I’m just trying to find my family.” Cat sighed. The wolf—her wolf?—lay down just next to her. The wolf had a limp, and several gashes streaked across its coat. She thought of Moat Cailin. And she reached her hand out to touch the wolf’s soft fur. “I’m just trying to find out who I am,” she finished.

“How did you get the wolf to behave?” Lady Sansa asked sharply.

Cat looked up the Lady of Winterfell for the first time. The lady’s cool blue eyes stared back at her, watching her as intently as the wolf had.

“I don’t know,” Cat said. “She just listens to me. I think…” She gulped again. “I think she always has.”

Lady Sansa said nothing. Cat looked at her, _really_ looked at her this time, the way she’d learn to look all those years ago. She looked at the lady’s blue eyes—and the dark circles under them. She looked at the simple, yet elegant, dress she wore—and the wrinkles and mud around the hem. She looked at the way the lady’s shining red hair that caught the sunlight—and the tangles that fell in waves across her back.

Something wasn’t right about any of it, she realized.

Her eyes should be bright, her face flushed with youth. Her dress should be fine silk, colored blue to bring out her eyes. And her hair should be twisted and braided and piled atop her head in the southeron style.

And something was glistening now in the lady’s eyes, and a memory came to mind of crying blue eyes and a little girl’s voice shouting. _Not Lady_.

“But you wouldn’t know…” Arya heard herself say. “…because Lady died.”

The tears flowed down Lady Sansa’s face, but she said nothing.

“It was my fault Lady died,” Arya said, and the dream from Moat Cailin was fresh in her head, it was as though she were there now, reliving it all.

Then Lady Sansa did something strange, something that surprised this long lost orphan from Braavos, whose memories had only now just begun to unfurl like dusty, cracked scrolls. The Lady Sansa enveloped her in a hug.

“Arya! It _is_ you!”

Arya coughed. “I can’t breathe,” she said, croaking like a frog. Maybe this was Lady Sansa’s way of vengeance. For killing her direwolf. For being gone for so long.

Sansa let go and Arya gasped for air. “Revenge—then?”

Sansa laughed and hugged her again.

“I don’t understand…” Arya said when she was free again. “I thought you hated me.”

“Is that why you stayed away all these years?” For a moment, confusion clouded Sansa’s eyes. But then she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re family. We’re all each other’s got.”

And that was it—something clicked, like a key inside a lock, and Arya was nine again, sitting on her father’s lap.

“The lone wolf dies. The pack surives.”

Sansa beamed.


	11. Enough of a Reward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading and reviewing my work! I don't usually include author's notes, but I wanted to take a moment to express my immense gratitude for your patience. It has been almost a year since I posted the prologue to this fic, and I know there have been some large gaps between updates. Thank you for hanging in there. When I first started writing this, I had intended to post a chapter every other week, but work and life got in the way and I haven't been able to devote the time to this fic that I had originally wanted. 
> 
> I had initially intended this chapter to be the last one, followed by a short epilogue. However, when I hit page 27 and realized I was only two-thirds of the way through my chapter outline, I figured it would probably be best to break this chapter up into not just two but three chapters. So I apologize--we were supposed to be so close to the end! 
> 
> With that said, there are thirteen more pages after this that have been written and just need to be reviewed by my wonderful beta, [Jessseri](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jessseri), who has not only been kind enough to proof each chapter for me, but also encouraged me to write this fic in the first place, helped me plot the whole story arc, and coached me through several bouts of writer's block.
> 
> My plan is to finish this story hopefully within the month, but definitely before Season 4 premiers. 
> 
> Thanks again for your patience! I hope you enjoy. :)

There was little to like about the North. A cold wind seemed to blow constantly, even in the summer, and the rolling hills stretched on and on, but never came upon an actual road or village or any sort of people at all. Not that the company of Northmen would have been at all enjoyable.

Still, Cersei might have breathed a sigh of relief to see any sign of life, beyond the sparse shrubbery that dotted the hills. A Northman might have been able to verify they were heading in the right direction. A Northman might have been able to show them the way to a warm, comfortable inn. A Northman might have been more entertaining company.

Qyburn had not spoken to her since they’d left the Dreadfort, except when absolutely necessary. And Ser Robert didn’t speak at all. His mere shadow cast a chill down her spine whenever it fell across her. But he was their salvation, and so, like the lion she was, she bore it. She bore it as she had for eight long years—knowing that revenge would come in time and she would have what was rightfully hers.

When they had left, a fire had burned within her that she’d not felt in a long time. The Stark girl was her ticket to freedom, and they would intercept her, kidnap her, and ransom her. Surely the Last Stark would fetch a lovely ransom. And then she could put this wretched life behind her.

They had been travelling for several days before Qyburn finally spoke to her. They’d settled in a small copse at the top of a hill for the night, and a small campfire crackled before them.

“Your Grace,” he said, leaning back against a tree. “Have you considered the possibility that the Stark girl may reach Winterfell before we do?”

Cersei scoffed. It was Qyburn that was slowing them down. His frail body could hardly keep up. She’d have abandoned him by now, but he still had power over Ser Robert. She needed him to control his creation.

“It wouldn’t be a concern if we increased our pace.”

“Yes, Your Grace. We can walk through the night, if you wish…”

“That will not be necessary.” What a fool. Who knows what sort of wild animals or savage Northmen they might run into in the dark of the night. Yes, they had Ser Robert with them, but why risk damaging their greatest asset?

“Your brother is still at Winterfell, you know,” Qyburn said.

Did he take her for stupid? He had told her that dreadful news moons ago. She hardly liked to think on it, of course, but that didn’t mean she didn’t remember.

“Do you think he might be able to help us?”

Honestly, with the insipid questions she had to put up with, she might as well have been travelling with a Northman.

“Of course Jaime will provide us with all the help he is able to give.” She rolled her eyes. “No doubt the Starks have imprisoned him.”

“He is captain of the guard…”

“Surely not by his own will. It must be the terms of his punishment. This is the North after all. If they were wise, they’d have executed him, but then, who else would have the intelligence and skill to train their guard?”

“As you say, Your Grace.”

“Still, we may be able to outwit the Starks together. Once we reach Winterfell and have the girl in our possession, arrange a meeting with Jaime. As captain of the guard, he can deliver our message to the Starks, and we will demand his freedom as part of our ransom.”

“An excellent plan, Your Grace.”

\--

Bran. Rickon. Robb. Mother. Father.

Arya reached out and traced the cold stone of Robb’s cheek with her fingers.

She remembered a time when she’d been so close to seeing him. She remembered the hope that had risen within her as the Twins came into view, and she remembered the despair as the Hound had dragged her away. She remembered the last time she’d seen him, when she’d waved goodbye from the back of her horse as they left Winterfell. She remembered.

“I loved them so much,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She felt Sansa’s arms wrap around her shoulders.

“They would not want us to dwell on the past,” Sansa said. “Not now that we have been reunited.”

Arya turned her gaze towards the statue of her father. It was strange, seeing these faces carved from the gray stone. As she looked upon them, she could see in her head their real faces, full of color and warmth. She could see Bran’s face, obscured only slightly as he waved the wooden practice sword towards her. She could see her father’s face when he caught her playing at swords and how he tried not to smile. She could even see Rickon’s baby face.

“The past isn’t all bad, though,” Arya said. “I’m quite fond of the memories I have of throwing food at you.”

From her left, she heard Jon snicker. Sansa tutted, but then let out a small giggle of her own.

“I suppose I probably deserved it.”

“Probably,” Jon said. Sansa stuck her tongue out at him.

“I can’t believe how much you’ve changed,” Arya said, laughing. The last time Arya had seen her sister, she’d had her bright red hair piled atop her head in the southron style and she’d worn a silky blue dress that had accented her eyes, which at the time were often pointed longingly in Joffrey’s direction.

Yet here she was wearing a simple Northern gown, like one their mother would have worn, and her hair was braided in one long braid that fell across her back. There was even mud trimming the edge of her gown and dirt under her fingernails—apparently she’d been helping in the garden. And there was no husband in sight.

“I would have thought for sure you’d be married to some noble lord or prince by now,” Arya teased.

“None of the princes were worthy enough,” Sansa said. “The only one who was turned out to be my cousin.”

“We could still marry, you know. It is the Targaryen fashion,” Jon said, winking.

“Ha!” Sansa turned and continued down the row. “And then the Tyrells can start another war.”

“What’s she talking about?”

Jon sighed as he followed Sansa. “My betrothed. Lady Margaery Tyrell.”

“Wasn’t she married to Lord Renly?”

“Yes, and King Joffrey, and King Tommen… Interesting how all of her husbands manage to die.”

“Not by her hand. Margaery is lovely, Jon,” Sansa said, looking over her shoulder. “It is a good match. Truly.”

“I suppose as a bastard I should be thankful for a noble bride at all.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“Now this is more like what I remember,” Arya said, reaching up to put her arms around her siblings’ shoulders. “I was confused when I first saw you two getting along. Made me think you were imposters.”

They all laughed.

“It’s good to have you back,” Jon said, before tousling Arya’s hair. She grimaced and then punched his arm.

“Careful! We mustn’t ruin my hair. I must look like a proper lady.”

“And behave like one too!”

Arya stuck her tongue out and then fled as Jon reached out to tickle her. She hid behind one of the statues, but then, when Jon didn’t follow, she peeked around it.

Sansa and Jon had stopped to stare at her.

“What? Do I have something on my face?” Arya wiped her mouth with her sleeve as she came around from behind the statue.

“It is strange, isn’t it? How much she looks like her?”

Arya turned and faced the statue she’d hidden behind. Lyanna Stark. Her father’s sister. Jon's mother. The woman who, some might argue, had indirectly started Robert’s Rebellion in the first place.

It was like looking at a mirror. The same chin, the same nose, the same brow. Somehow the mason had managed to capture just a slight glint of mischief in Lyanna’s eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Arya said. “She’s much prettier.”

“Arya,” Sansa said, taking her hand. “You look just like her. You’re beautiful.”

“So I suppose I’m no longer Arya Horseface, then?”

Sansa rolled her eyes and smiled. “No.” She paused. “Your future husband will be quite lucky. Now come, we ought to begin preparing for the feast.”

Sansa started back towards the stairs. Arya looked to Jon.

“Future husband?”

“Don’t worry, Horseface,” Jon said, grinning. “There’s plenty of time for you. Sansa hasn’t even wed Dorren yet.”

“Dorren?”

“Dorren Umber. She’s betrothed to the heir of the Last Hearth. It was part of our agreement with the Queen. She promised Sansa could stay here at Winterfell until it had been restored to its former glory. Then she will wed one of the noblest houses of the North.”

“I see.”

“He’s a good man. He fought for Robb, and later for Stannis, and then for me in the end, in the War of Ice and Fire.”

“Does she love him?”

Jon shrugged. “It’s a good match. Truly,” he said in Sansa’s voice. “Daenerys relies on us to unify the kingdom. And she must reward those who supported her in the war. For the Martells, Aegon Targaryen. For the Tyrells, yours truly.” He bowed. “And to keep the North happy, the beautiful Sansa Stark, to the noblest, most loyal house.” He sighed.

“What about me?”

Jon rubbed her shoulder. “There’s plenty of time to figure that out. For now, let’s just celebrate your return.”

He followed Sansa towards the stairs. Arya stayed behind. In the darkness, Lyanna’s face stared at her, and she stared back.

\--

Fire. Freshly cooked stew. Clean blankets and a soft pillow.

After nearly a decade at the Dreadfort, Qyburn could have been convinced that this humble inn at the Winter Town was an exotic paradise.

“When are you going to find Jaime?”

But then, he was still with Cersei.

“Your Grace, I thought you had decided to stay in your room? We don’t want anyone to spot you.”

“I would, except that the infernal servants at this inn have yet to bring me the supper you requested on my behalf.”

“Ah. Yes. The servants.” Qyburn had forgotten to tell them to send food up to the room. He rose from his seat on the bench. “I’ll have a word with them now. We can’t have you go starving, can we? And I’ll send up a bath for you as well. Your Grace.”

“Good.”

“I’m going out to find your brother. Stay in the room. Keep an eye on Ser Robert—we don’t want him getting lost.”

“Do you take me for a watchdog?”

“I’ll have the servants bring a new dress for you, too.”

“See to it, then.”

Cersei left the room and disappeared upstairs. Qyburn sighed, then looked around for the nearest servant.

“Pardon me, miss. My sister is in room four. She’s very ill, can’t move about on her own. Could I trouble you to send her some food?”

“Of course, sir.”

“And prepare a warm bath, it soothes her joints. Here,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of herbs. “This should do the trick.” They always had shut Cersei up before—they were a strong medicine that would put her right to sleep. “And a new dress, if you can. We’ve travelled a long way and are in need of new clothes.”

He handed her some coins—most of the last of his money. But it wouldn’t matter, because he’d be getting his due soon.

The servant disappeared into the kitchen.

Now, to find Jaime Lannister.

Qyburn already knew, from his letters, that Jaime Lannister was in good favor with the Starks. Cersei, in all her cleverness, had concluded that her brother couldn’t possibly like the Starks and that he would, under no circumstances, decide to work with them through his own will. Qyburn knew differently, and he also knew that it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d tried to explain it to Cersei.

Besides, it was much better this way. If Cersei knew her brother was free, she might want to go straight to him herself. But, since she thought he was under constant surveillance, she had determined that it would be better to stay out of sight. Which made Qyburn’s plan much simpler.

\--

“To all of you, the reward, as promised, split between the three of you.”

Jon watched the expressions of the three men before him. They had given him the only reward he’d ever wanted—his “sister” Arya back. The money they were owed meant little to him. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder about the nature of these men. Many had passed through Winterfell claiming to have found his sister just for the money alone. Apparently, even in peacetime, many families still hurt from the war, and still desperately needed the money.

So who were the three men to whom he owed everything?

First, on the left, Harwin. He remembered the man only vaguely. Though he’d been ten and four when he’d left Winterfell, much had happened since. But he knew Harwin was a good man.

“Harwin, for you, if you wish it, there is also a place in our guard. Jaime’s got his hands full, I’m afraid, and looks forward to having some help. Especially from someone who already knows his way around.”

“I’d be honored, my lord.” Harwin bowed his head, but Jon could still see his smile.

In the middle, Lem Lemoncloak, as the man styled himself. Not particularly creative. His yellow cloak had accumulated some dirt and mud along the way.

“To you, Ser Lemoncloak, a place in the guard as well.”

The man shrugged. “Sure. Why not.”

“Lem is quite skilled, my lord,” Harwin said quickly, sending Lem a look. Lem shrugged again.

 _Jaime will have fun with that one,_ Jon thought, before turning to the last man.

“Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill,” Jon said slowly. “A place on the guard as well, if you so choose. However, Lady Arya tells me you’re a talented blacksmith.”

“Gendry’s the best, my lord,” Harwin said. “He studied under Tobho Mott in King’s Landing.”

“Tobho Mott. Is that so? I have heard that name before.” Jon paused. “Tobho Mott is the smith that melted down the ancestral blade of House Stark and split it into two.”

Gendry stiffened in his seat.

“One half of the blade did manage to find its way home, however. Oathkeeper.” Jon paused. “Tobho Mott is a fine smith. He works for the Queen now, I hear.”

Gendry let out the breath he had been holding.

“If you’re half as good as he, we’d be happy to have you in our service.”

“I thank you for the offer, m’lord,” Gendry said, bowing his head, like Harwin had. “Unfortunately, I must decline. Both the money and the job.”

“Gendry…” Harwin said.

Jon raised his hand. “You have returned Lady Arya to her home, brought happiness to Winterfell, and reunited three sad orphans with the last of their kin. You must let me repay you somehow. What do you want, then?”

“Nothing that money can give. M’lord.”

Jon nodded in understanding. Then he stood and crossed the study towards his cabinet. “I see. Harwin, Lem. If you don’t mind, I’d like a word with Gendry alone.”

Harwin sent a worried look towards Gendry. As they left, Jon poured two cups of ale and handed one to Gendry, who looked up, surprised and uncertain.

“To Arya,” Jon said, raising his cup.

“To Arya.” Gendry knocked cups with him and, still looking up at Jon in hesitation, took a small sip.

Jon took a long gulp. “If I may speak candidly.”

“Of course, m’lord.”

Jon cringed slightly. Even after several years, it felt strange to hear people address him so.

“I am a bastard myself,” Jon said, walking towards the window. “As a child, I thought I was the bastard son of Ned Stark. It wasn’t until the War of Ice and Fire that I discovered my true parentage—Prince Rhaegar and Lady Lyanna. Nevertheless, I am a bastard still. Just a bastard by a different name. Yet here I am, Lord of Winterfell.”

Gendry said nothing.

“Surely you must know your parentage,” Jon said, feeling a little impatient. Arya had mentioned the boy could be thick, but surely…

“You think I have gone two-and-twenty years of life without hearing about my striking resemblance to the Usurper?” He paused, then bowed his head again. “M’lord.”

Jon openly grimaced at the title this time and took another swig of ale. From the corner of his eye, he saw Gendry raise his eyebrows.

“You don’t need to call me ‘m’lord,’ Gendry. We’re cut from the same stone, you and I,” Jon continued. “The bastard children of royalty. What is the world to do with us?”

“Arry used to talk about you,” Gendry said suddenly.

“Arry?” Now it was Jon’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Did you know her well, then?”

“Aye. We escaped King’s Landing together.”

“With the Night’s Watch? Yes, Sam mentioned that.”

“She mentioned you all the time. And her brother, Robb. She would say I could work for him as his smith.”

“But you didn’t want to, I’ll wager.”

“Not then. Not now.”

Jon took another sip, smaller this time, of his ale. “I could have you legitimized…”

Gendry scoffed. “You could have the bastard son of the Usurper legitimized?”

“Well, as it happens, I’m on good terms with the Queen.”

“No doubt you are.” Gendry stood and set the cup of ale on Jon’s desk. Jon noticed he’d hardly drank any of it. “With all due respect, _m’lord_ , what good would it do me to be legitimized? Would you make me a lord? And what is a lord without a castle? All the Baratheon lands already have lords. And it’s for the better. I’d be useless as a lord. I can’t run a castle. I can’t even read.”

Jon twirled his empty cup in his hands and said nothing. Gendry was right, of course. And he wasn’t really sure that Dany would go along with any of it.

“I thank you for your gratitude. It is enough of a reward for me to know that Lady Arya, after all these years, has finally found her family.”

Being a lord had its many perks, Jon had quickly discovered. But there was still much he could not do.

He watched Gendry go.

\--

Qyburn found Jaime drilling his troops in the courtyard of the castle. In all the commotion surrounding the rebuilding of the castle, the drilling of the troops, and the preparation for the welcome feast, it was easy for him to slip through the crowd unnoticed. He watched for several moments, until finally, the Kingslayer turned and saw him.

“I don’t believe it,” Jaime said as he walked towards Qyburn.

“Ser Jaime,” Qyburn said, bowing.

“Qyburn! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Before Qyburn could answer, two men appeared. One, dressed in a dirty yellow cloak, looked to be in his late thirties. The other was much older.

“Ser Jaime,” the older one said. “Lord Jon sent us…”

“My two new recruits, aye,” Jaime said. “I was told there might be a third.”

“I can come back later, if it please you,” Qyburn said.

“No, I will only be a moment, please wait,” Jaime said quickly, before turning back to the two men.

“Alas, it’s just the two of us,” said the older man.

“Which one of you is Harwin, then?”

“That’d be me,” said the older one.

“Excellent. Lord Jon said you’d help me with training.”

“Aye, but, ser, before…”

“Well, then, get started. I’ve got business I must attend to.”

“Ser…”

Before the man named Harwin could protest further, Jaime put his arm around Qyburn’s shoulders and led him away from the courtyard.

“What brings you to Winterfell?” Jaime asked. “I thought you had died in the Scourge of King’s Landing.”

“Well, as it happened, I managed to escape.”

“Excellent. Would you join us for dinner? Brienne will be happy to see you. And you can tell us where you’ve been…”

“I’m afraid that would not be a good idea.”

Jaime led them into his small office in the armory.

“Would you like a drink?”

“No, thanks,” Qyburn said. Jaime poured himself a small cup of ale.

“Have a seat.” Jaime sat down in his chair and Qyburn followed suit across from him. “Now, why wouldn’t that be a good idea? What brings you here?”

“I don’t think your sister would much approve.”

“My sister?” Jaime snorted. “Who cares what she thinks?”

He took a swig of ale.

“Well, you might. Because she’s here.”

Jaime spewed the ale across the table and even sprayed Qyburn.

The former maester sighed. He supposed it was too much to ask for manners from a Lannister.

\--

The Last Stark rode through the Hunter’s Gate, windswept and rosy and smiling. She’d been allowed to join the morning hunt in the Wolfswood, even Sansa had agreed to it.

Of course, now she would have to bathe, and have her hair rebraided, and have a gown fitted, all for the feast this evening. So be it. This was home, after all.

She’d had to leave the hunt early, though, in order to be back in time to get ready. Sansa, even though she had agreed in the end, had warned her there wouldn’t be enough time, that she’d have to rush to get ready—on and on she’d went. But Arya had already resigned herself to the swarm of handmaidens that were no doubt already assembling upstairs, ready to pounce on her as soon as she entered her bedroom.

She’d just needed to clear her head after the conversation in the crypts. That was all.

She’d raced her guards back to Winterfell, and of course, there was no match, so she looked forward to having the stables to herself. She’d only been back in Winterfell for several days, and already she was realizing how crowded a castle could be.

Back in the stables, she jumped down from her horse and led him to his stall.

Which, of course, happened to be the stall right next to Gendry’s horse.

So much for privacy.

She watched him as she approached. His back was to her; he was putting something in his horse’s pack. No doubt it was the reward that Jon had granted him.

After closing the pack, he turned and then froze.

“Hello, Gendry.”

“Hello.”

Then he turned and continued packing his horse.

“Did you collect your reward, then?”

“My business is complete,” he answered, without bothering to look at her.

“Young man,” said a voice behind her. One of the guards she’d left behind. “You will address Lady Stark as ‘my lady.’”

“No, that’s not necessary.” She might scream if she heard another person call her m’lady. She turned back to Gendry. “Did Jon offer you the blacksmith position?”

“Aye. M’lady.”

Gendry took the reins in his hand and started to lead his horse from the stable.

“But you’re not taking it.”

Gendry did not say anything. He did not even look at her.

“So you’re just leaving, then.”

She followed after him.

“Please, m’lady.” She saw his jaw clench. Why wouldn’t he even look at her? The stupid bull. “I’m glad you found what you were looking for.”

She was seething inside, but there were people about, guards and workers and servants, and they were all preparing for a feast, for her, to welcome her home. And besides, she’d been no one once, and she knew how to keep her emotions in check. Eight long years with the Faceless Men had to have been worth something, in the end.

“I’m glad you did, too.”

He snorted, then hoisted himself up onto his horse. With a small nod of his head, he simply said, “M’lady.” And then he was gone.

Leaving. That’s all he ever did. In the past few days, she’d remembered much of her past. Her brothers, her sister, her parents. Even Gendry. She had been surprised just how many memories she had of his stupid bull face. Another came to mind, another just like this. He was supposed to come with her to Riverrun. He was supposed to work for Robb.

Arya stayed by the door to the stable for a moment and watched his horse disappear into the courtyard.

\--

Harwin looked away from the practicing troops to see Gendry leaving the stables. He strode over to him. First day on the job be damned. He had to say goodbye to his friend.

“If you’re ever in the Free Cities, look me up.”

Lem had sidled up next to them as well. “The homebody finally gets the travel bug? Wonders never cease.”

Harwin rolled his eyes at Lem, but to Gendry, he said, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Surer than I’ve ever been.”


	12. All She Ever Really Wanted

 

The course of Jaime’s life had naturally made him a skeptical man. The fact that the old former maester, whom he’d not seen for nearly ten years, had not only arrived in Winterfell just days after the Last Stark had returned, but also claimed to have brought his long-lost sister, made him considerably weary.

Nevertheless, he could not deny his curiosity. Whatever secrets Qyburn kept, whatever misgivings Jaime might have had in another time, the man had saved his arm—and his life. He might not be a friend, but he wasn’t an enemy. So, for the sake of curiosity, Jaime had been patient and polite. He’d been altogether hospitable.

Qyburn had been eager to explain where they had been for the past ten years: just before the Scourge of King’s Landing, he’d helped the “true queen” (as he phrased it) escape and led her to the safety of a small village in the Riverlands. Lack of funds and the arrival of the Dragon Queen had forced her to lie low. They’d taken refuge with a few villagers who had remained loyal to the Lannisters, but had few choices of where to go. The Dragon Queen’s supporters were everywhere. Nowhere was safe—until Qyburn had learned of Jaime’s presence in Winterfell. Then, they had gathered what little they had and made their way north.

Jaime had a few doubts regarding Qyburn’s story, but again, curiosity stayed his tongue. The truth would reveal itself soon enough, and he wanted to see if Qyburn had, in fact, brought his sister. The kingdom was rife with imposters, after all.

Qyburn had led him to a small inn on the edge of the Winter Town. The sign over the door was splintering, and the stairs creaked in loud protest as they climbed them. When Qyburn finally pushed open the door behind which his sister supposedly waited, Jaime saw nothing but an old crone huddled by the fire.

“Where is she then?”

“Within,” Qyburn said, before leaving and shutting the door behind him.

The old woman turned and rose shakily. She clutched a blanket around her shoulders, but when her green eyes fell upon Jaime, she dropped the blanket. She stood a little taller, held her chin high, and in a surprisingly smooth voice for an old woman, she spoke.

“My dear brother, is that you?”

Her voice was soft and sweet, but it was familiar enough to Jaime for him to know better. Her last words to him, though he had only read them on parchment, were fresh in his mind still. “ _I need you as I have never needed you. I love you, I love you, I love you_.”

Jaime stepped further into the room and better observed his sister’s features by the firelight.

She seemed half a foot shorter, somehow. Dull, white hair, which had once shone like gold, fell limply upon her shoulders. Her green eyes drooped at the corners, and the wrinkles around her mouth told him this woman had not smiled in years.

She was not the lioness she had once been.

“It is me, brother. Your Cersei,” she said, impatient that he had not yet spoken. She approached him and opened her arms to embrace. “Hold me.”

Not knowing what else to do, he complied. She felt so light in his arms, like a delicate porcelain doll. He did not want to hold her. He would break her.

She looked up into his eyes—and there he saw his own reflection. They had the same eyes, after all, and in hers, he saw also what time had done to him. His own hair was now flecked with white, too, and his beard was thick and course. He knew at once that she hated it. He did not resemble the young member of the Kingsguard that he had once been.

He did not resemble the man that Cersei had loved.

He was no longer the man that had loved Cersei.

“What have these wolves done to you?” she asked, as she pulled away and looked him over. “How long have they enslaved you?”

Enslaved? Cersei, it appeared, had not changed.

“Lord Jon graciously appointed me as a captain of his guard as a reward for returning Lady Sansa to Winterfell,” he said calmly. Patiently. He had already determined that he must strive with all his strength to keep his patience.

Cersei’s eyes flashed—for what reason, or reasons, Jaime could not guess. She turned away from him and looked into the fire.

“I see,” she said. “So you managed to find the co-conspirator to our son’s murder after all.”

Jaime said nothing.

“These past ten years have required much sacrifice for our family,” Cersei continued, walking from the fireplace towards the window as she spoke. “For the capture of the co-conspirator to the murder of King Joffrey— _your firstborn son_ —the kingdom rewards you how? They put you in charge of a … a group of wildlings, I wager, I’ve heard the stories of the Stark bastard’s love of the savages beyond the wall…”

“Cersei,” Jaime said.

She held up her hand and pressed on. “Meanwhile, instead of putting her on trial for her crimes, the Dragon Queen rewards Lady Sansa by restoring her seat at Winterfell. And what of our son’s other murderer? The vile Imp sits on our father’s throne at Casterly Rock— _your_ rightful seat?”

She scoffed in disgust.

“That ‘vile Imp’ is your brother, need I remind you?” Jaime said. “And he helped restore peace to the kingdom—”

“Oh, yes, I have heard of what he has done,” she said, whirling around to face him. Though she was a lion, the fire of dragons flamed in her eyes. “Everyone in the kingdom knows how he helped the Dragon Queen tame her wild fire monsters. What sort of Dragon Queen can’t control her own dragons? And then she took those trained beasts and lay fire upon our home. She killed your last son.”

Jaime turned away and ran his hand through his hair.

“So if this is a kingdom of peace—a kingdom that rewards a halfman for killing not one but two of his own nephews? Then I want nothing of peace.”

“What do you desire then?” he said, turning back to face her and sending back a fire of his own. “Do you wish to raise banners against Queen Daenerys? Why have you returned?”

She backed down then, in a way that the younger Cersei never would have, and resumed her seat by the fire.

“I simply wanted to see the only kin I had left in the world.”

She looked so pathetic then. Jaime was reminded of Myrcella, as a child. He was reminded of the Cersei who had mourned her mother’s death at the age of nine.

And he wondered, not for the first time, what her life had been like since the Scourge of King’s Landing. He had often wondered what fate might have befallen his sister. Most of the kingdom had assumed she had perished in the fires that had consumed the city, but Jaime Lannister knew his sister better.

As he looked upon her, at the sad face that had seen the death of all three of her children, he realized that he was no longer angry with her. He simply pitied her.

He knelt down at her feet and took her hand.

“I am here.”

“You kneel before me, that is true,” Cersei said slowly. “But I am not convinced you are mine truly.”

Of course he wasn’t hers. He hadn’t been hers in many years.

“What would you have me do?” he said cautiously.

“There is nothing left for us in Westeros,” she declared. “We shall head east, I hear there are many riches in the Free Cities… What? What is that look?”

“Cersei… I cannot leave Winterfell.”

“Is this a matter of your enslavement? Jaime, my love, they will not be able to catch you.”

Jaime rose from the floor and backed away.

“I am not enslaved, Cersei. I have a family here.”

The flame flickered again in her eyes, but she stayed calm. This was the Cersei that ought to be feared. “A family?”

“Yes. A wife…” Cersei need not know the identity of his wife. At least not yet. “…and a daughter.”

“A family?” she repeated. “ _I_ am your family.”

“Which is why I am sure Lady Sansa and Lord Jon will graciously forgive your transgressions against the kingdom and allow you to live here, with me…”

But the flame, reignited, roared hot and angry in Cersei’s eyes. She stood from her chair and prowled towards him like a lion on the hunt.

“You would have me beg my son’s murderer for refuge in this pathetic excuse for a castle? Trapped for the rest of my life in the middle of nowhere at the mercy of the wolves? I think not. I think not. No, _brother_ , I shall not—”

“There is something you must know,” he said quickly, though he struggled to keep his voice low. “It was Peter Baelish and Olenna Redwyne that poisoned Joffrey. Not Sansa.”

“Oh, is that so? Did Sansa tell you that?”

“Yes, she did, and what of it? You have known the girl since she was two and ten. You know she is no liar, let alone a murderer.”

“It is rare to see a lion change its hide for that of a wolf,” she said, her voice full of venom.

“You are no longer Queen, in case you couldn’t tell,” Jaime said. “I need not suffer your insults. As your brother, and in memory of our mother and the children we created together, I shall open my house and hearth to you. But that is the last I shall speak of this. Do what you will.”

With that, Jaime left the room.

He met Qyburn in the hall.

“For your trouble,” he said, tossing Qyburn a satchel of money. “I thank you for taking care of her all these years.”

Qyburn weighed the bag in his hand before following Jaime down the hall.

“Ser—I am grateful for your kindness, of course, quite grateful. But your sister owes me much more…”

“It is enough to take you to White Harbor,” Jaime replied, using the voice of the captain of the guard—a voice that left no room for argument. “I’m sure a man of your industry can find your way from there.”

Qyburn stopped in his tracks. Jaime did not look over his shoulder. He left the inn—and his business within—behind.

\--

“Stop pacing.”

Sansa watched as Arya paused by the door and looked back at her sister. Recognition bloomed in the young girls’ eyes, and with it, Sansa could tell, a sense of acceptance and comfort— _now_ Sansa resembled the girl Arya had left behind in King’s Landing, though her hair had been braided in the more recent style—braids overlapping braids, in complicated twists and knots, which had come into fashion since Queen Daenerys had taken the throne.

Arya’s own hair had been pulled and yanked into braids of its own, though her hair was hardly long enough to mimic Sansa’s elaborate do. Sansa had insisted she wear Lyanna’s dress—apparently Howland Reed had gifted it to her during her journey north—and Arya hadn’t stopped fidgeting since she put it on. She kept tugging at the neckline, trying to pull it up.

What would have once frustrated Sansa instead inspired a smile. Some habits, she supposed, could not be unlearned. Sansa reached over and pulled Arya’s arm down to her side.

“The dress suits you well,” she said. “Stop fidgeting.”

“Yes, mother,” Arya said, rolling her eyes. She turned away, muttering something about a sword under her breath.

“I told you—a sword wouldn’t go with the dress,” Sansa said. Earlier, Arya had insisted she be allowed to wear a sword at her side.

“Who do you plan on fighting?” Sansa had asked. “The mummers?”

Arya had scoffed, and then, when she thought Sansa wasn’t looking, had slipped a dagger into her boot. Sansa couldn’t help but wonder just what dangers her younger sister had faced in the long years that they had been separated.

She knew vaguely of the types of dangers Arya would have faced during her time in the Riverlands—Sansa had encountered the Brotherhood Without Banners, after all, and had traversed the Riverlands herself, albeit in the protection of Brienne and Jaime Lannister. But Harwin had mentioned that Arya had left Westeros eight years ago from the port of Saltpans, on a boat headed towards Braavos.

What had happened there, Sansa could only guess. But eight years was a long time, and something had caused her sister to forget herself. To become someone else. That—Sansa could understand. She’d put on her own mask once, many years ago, but some days she still felt as though Alayne Stone lived with her still. Whenever she received a letter from Edmure from the Vale. Whenever she saw a child build a castle in the snow. Whenever a man’s gaze—or touch—lingered a moment too long.

Yet whatever troubles Sansa had suffered through herself, she somehow suspected that Arya’s had been much, much more difficult.

Now, however, as they waited in the foyer outside the Great Hall, her sister seemed more like the young child Sansa remembered. Protocol dictated that they allow everyone to assemble before they could make their entrance, and besides, Jon had been delayed by some business with Sam. So, ever impatient, Arya had cracked open the door and peeked inside. Again.

“He’s not there, you know,” Sansa said.

“Oh, I know.” Sansa saw the blush spread over Arya’s cheeks. “Oh, um, who’s not there?”

Sansa smiled knowingly, and though the smile was sincere, she could not help but also feel a pang of sadness. This was how sisters were meant to interact, she had once thought. All she had ever wanted, as a child, was for Arya to act like a normal girl. For Arya to talk about boys and weddings and children. And now, here she was, and clearly the girl was out of her element. Her sister had found love, and yet had no idea. Yes, this is what older sisters were for, Sansa thought, and if only they hadn’t been robbed of the last eight years.

“A bastard boy,” Sansa said. “The son of a Usurper.”

“No,” Arya answered, letting the door close. “He’s probably in White Harbor now, spending his reward money on whores, no doubt.”

 _The dress suits you well_ , Sansa thought, repeating her own words in her mind. _But jealousy does not._

Although, even Sansa had to admit, she did find it rather amusing.

When Gendry had first appeared on the grounds of Winterfell, she would have hated the idea that her sister had fallen in love with King Robert’s bastard son. But, in the days that followed, she’d spoken for a long time with Brienne, Harwin, and Jon, and she had learned that some of her opinions regarding the Brotherhood Without Banners were somewhat… misguided.

Harwin especially had explained how Gendry had looked after Arya when they were children, how they had escaped King’s Landing together and protected each other in the war-torn Riverlands before the Brotherhood Without Banners had finally found them.

“They were practically inseparable,” Harwin had told her. “But she was highborn, you see, and I had to explain to the boy… there were certain things that were inappropriate. It was then that he agreed to join the Brotherhood—I’m afraid Arya never forgave him for that. She ran away shortly thereafter.”

The way that Arya spoke about the boy made clear that she still harbored some sort of resentment towards him. But Arya’s icy words—though cold and hard—were transparent enough to Sansa to betray Arya’s true feelings.

She didn’t want the boy to go.

Instead of correcting her sister—Gendry had not accepted any of the rewards Jon had attempted to grant him—Sansa stood beside her and cracked open the door to the hall once more.

“Look at them in there,” she said. “So excited to know the Last Stark lives. You were born into this world…” She held up her hand to indicate Arya’s dress, which the girl was once again tugging. “Fancy dresses. Cordial feasts. Political alliances forged by marriages.” Sansa sighed. “You know,” she continued, “that I have always felt at home here. But I wonder if it is what _you_ really want.”

“Of course it is!” Arya said quickly.

Sansa arched an eyebrow.

“Well… I can’t say that I find this dress comfortable…”

“Is that so?” Sansa said. Arya rolled her eyes and looked back into the hall. The worry was apparent on her face. Sansa could imagine it—even she sometimes felt nervous addressing the entirety of Winterfell.

“I suppose I’m more used to sitting in the shadows than at the grand table,” Arya said. She tugged at the end of her sleeve, then caught herself and dropped her hands to her side. “But being here,” she pointed at the ground. “In Winterfell, with you and Jon, after all these years… that’s all I ever really wanted.”

When Arya looked up from the ground, her eyes were full of tears.

Sansa hugged her sister tighter than she ever had.

“You will always have us,” she said. “But I wonder if that is enough?” Now Sansa’s eyes had filled with tears of her own. She knew what the words she was about to say would do, but she knew they must be said. “Arya… he didn’t take the money.”

Arya pulled away and looked up sharply. “He didn’t?”

“He told Jon that your happiness—that knowing you were reunited with us—was enough of a reward.”

Arya’s head tilted to the side as she considered this news.

“And knowing that you are alive… _that_ is enough for Jon and for me. Whatever you choose, you will always have us.”

As Arya’s head turned towards the direction of the east gate, towards the direction of the King’s Road, Sansa knew the decision had already been made. Though she had only just found her sister again and would miss her dearly, the words she had spoken were true.

\--

It was all Qyburn could do to contain Cersei’s rage.

At some point—and he wasn’t entirely sure when—he had locked the room behind him and had stormed down to the great hall, where he had taken refuge in a booth by the window. From there, he watched as the last stragglers made their way towards the castle for the feast.

At least no one was around to hear the noise Cersei was making.

Qyburn sighed.

When he had gone to Jaime earlier, he had thought he had seen the last of Cersei. He had requested a particular sum of money—as much as he dared—for taking care of Cersei. A certain reward for her return. Jaime had agreed that he would pay Qyburn after he had verified that the woman was indeed the former queen. But the money Jaime had given him was not remotely close to the sum Qyburn had needed. Sure, it was enough to get to White Harbor. But what good was that? He’d spent eight long years babysitting the most indulgent person in Westeros, only because he had been promised compensation.

What good had that gotten him?

His services—the services that had brought about Ser Robert, the services he had provided Cersei during their time at the Dreadfort—were worth more than the coins contained in this purse.

What was he to do?

He sighed again, leaned back in his seat and stared out the window.

A young woman passed by.

It was rather odd, he thought, that she was heading towards the King’s Road—in the opposite direction of the castle. In a full-length gown, no less. That would make travelling rather difficult. He shook his head. He would never understand the ways of women.

Realizing that the hall had emptied—in fact, it had been rather empty for quite awhile—he decided it was safe to help himself to the food in the kitchen. Perhaps he might find the ale.

As he looked through their stores, he thought again to the woman in the street. Wasn’t it rather late to be embarking towards the King’s Road? And where was her horse?

He shrugged, and shook his head again, and then found a bottle of ale.

“Aha!” he said, picking it up and bringing it up into the light.

Then he realized—the girl in the street had been wearing a gray dress with a white wolf embroidered on the front.

And that was when he called for Ser Robert.

\--

The quiet of the King’s Road seemed much more prevalent going south, to speak nothing of the cold. At least there was a silver lining to his journey. He could not say he enjoyed the cold summer of the north. Although who could say what the weather in Qohor might be like?

Yet the road to Qohor was long, and he was only just beginning. To be honest, he hadn’t truly reached the King’s Road yet—he now traversed the small branch that led from Winterfell to the actual road. And, once he met the King’s Road, he would not be tracing his path back towards Moat Cailin—thank the gods. Instead, he’d cut east towards the White Knife and follow the river to White Harbor, where he would find a boat to take him to Essos.

He didn’t even know the shape of Essos, let alone what roads he might take to get there. But that was a bridge he’d cross later.

For now, he simply had the patter of his horse’s hooves against the path to entertain him. He glanced over his shoulder, back at Winterfell.

He hadn’t gone far yet; the castle still loomed high enough in the sky to block the setting sun.

Really, it wouldn’t have been wise to stay.

What would he do as a blacksmith in Winterfell?

It wouldn’t be like it was when they were young, when she would appear from the shadows at the forge to watch him hammer steel into a sword. If he ever saw Arya, it would be from afar. He would sit at the back of the hall. He would watch her from there, watch her laugh with her sister and brother, or cousin, whatever Jon Snow was to her.

And eventually, another man—probably Ned Dayne, stupid Ned Dayne—would come, and drape his cloak about her shoulders, and carry her off to his castle. And he would be the one watching her leave.

It was better this way.

Better for him to be the first to leave.

What other choice did he have?

He turned away from Winterfell and looked on ahead towards his future.

A wolf howled.

\--

There hadn’t been time to think—when Qyburn had seen the Stark girl on the road, alone, unarmed, he had simply reacted. Ser Robert came thundering down the stairs and Cersei trailed behind. Qyburn ordered Ser Robert to capture the girl, but not to kill her, and his large, undead puppet had predictably complied.

He took the girl by surprise and knocked the back of her head with the blunt edge of his sword.

“This is the girl your allies had so much trouble capturing?” Cersei had asked, raising one eyebrow. But she had stopped yelling, so she clearly had approved of the drastic turn fate had taken in their direction.

Qyburn, on the other hand, felt a little put out.

If he had perhaps been a little subtler, maybe he could have kidnapped the Stark girl on his own. And the reward would have been his, and he’d have left Cersei alone in this inn none the wiser.

By the dark look on her face, he suspected Cersei had more devious intentions for the girl than simple ransom.

Ser Robert picked up the unconscious body and carried her back to the deserted inn.

“What now?” Cersei asked.

Qyburn looked down at the Last Stark, then hurried towards the door. The street was empty—there did not appear to be any guards that had followed her.

“Is it not peculiar that she was alone?” he said, looking to Cersei.

“This little brat? She was often off on her own, getting into trouble. I’ve told you, the Starks were only one step above wildlings.” She paused, then muttered, “To think Jaime wanted me to live with these heathens.”

“I don’t think anyone noticed,” Qyburn said. “Everyone else is up at the castle. No one will see us leave—but we’ll have to go now. They’ll realize she’s missing soon enough. The feast _is_ for her, after all.”

“Leave? And where would we go?”

Qyburn rubbed his brow. Just moments ago Cersei had made clear her strong desire to leave Winterfell. But then—she did have a point. Where would they go?

“I refuse to return to that bastard’s castle. The Dreadfort? More like the eighth hell. And a queen does not camp.”

Sighing, Qyburn looked once more to the window. Whatever choice they made, the guard of Winterfell would soon be upon them. If they fled, the guard would hunt them down. If they stayed, they would soon be discovered. However this played out, it would play out quickly.

\--

Arya woke in darkness.

A hammer pounded in her head. What had happened? The last thing she remembered, she had left the castle to clear her head.

And now she was here. Wherever here was.

She tried to look around, but the darkness betrayed nothing of her surroundings. Her wrists ached—they were bound to the arms of a splintering wooden chair, as were her ankles. Well, that was something she might be able to use later. If the chair was old and worn, she might be able to break it.

Perhaps others in her situation would have been scared, but she stayed calm. She’d been in worse situations.

And a girl could wait.

She could not say how much time had passed, but eventually, suddenly, a light appeared in the far corner of the room. A door had opened, and yellow light illuminated the top of a stone staircase. She was in some sort of cellar.

“The girl is awake.”

It was the voice of an old man. But who? She didn’t recognize the voice at all.

The old man grabbed a lantern and descended the stairs. A second figure followed, but promptly shut the door. The light of the lantern was weak, and only covered a four- or five-foot radius. The old man paused at the center of the room—she was just a foot away from him, but did not recognize any of his features—and hung the lantern on a nail sticking out from a wooden beam.

Then he joined his companion in the shadows.

They whispered to each other for several moments. Arya wondered if perhaps this was some emissary from the House of Black and White. Had someone paid to have her killed? Had they decided letting her leave had been a mistake? She knew much about them, after all—she likely knew too much. Now that she thought about it, it had been rather odd they’d let her leave at all. The secrets that she knew… they were enough to warrant her head.

But then a woman appeared, also old and frail, though not quite so old as the man. The House of Black and White would not send the likes of these to capture her. Would they? Then again—someone had knocked her unconscious. So either this man and this woman were not what they appeared, or there was a third person—at least—lurking nearby.

Arya looked over the woman before her. She wore a simple gown, modest, but clean—she did not have the usual stink of peasants. And besides, she did not carry herself like a peasant.

But who was she?

“A woman has many enemies in this world,” the woman said. Her voice did sound familiar. It had the air of a noblewoman. She stayed just at the edge of the light as she spoke. “The worst of which is time. In the beginning, time befriends you. Makes you beautiful. Your hair grows long. Your breasts fill out. You become a woman. But time betrays you in the end.” Here the woman paused. “It is a pity you will not know the true sting of time’s betrayal.”

“You plan to kill me then?” Arya said. “Might I at least know the identity of my murderer?”

“You do not recognize me?” the woman asked. She let out a harsh laugh. “I suppose you wouldn’t. Evidence, my dear, of the trick time likes to play on us.”

The woman stepped closer. Shadows danced across her face.

“Ah well,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Your family is familiar enough with betrayal. Your sister killed her once-betrothed, after all.”

Arya could not help but laugh at that. “Sansa? Sansa couldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Quiet! You will speak when I ask you to.”

Arya cocked her head to the side. That voice. She definitely knew that voice. She had heard it recently, in her dreams.

“I know you,” she said suddenly. “How do I know you?”

“Typical,” the woman muttered. “What do I expect from a Stark? Thick as the ice of the Wall.”

“Cersei,” Arya said, the name slipping from her lip even as she remembered it. “You killed Lady.”

“Lady who? I’ve never killed anyone.”

“Maybe not with your own hands,” Arya said, shifting slightly to better look at the former queen. Time had betrayed her, indeed. “Yet those hands are stained with blood nevertheless.”

“Do not act as though your own hands are clean. Wolves are just as savage as lions, if not more so.”

“And just whom precisely did Sansa murder?” And then Arya realized. Cersei had said once-betrothed. “You think she killed Joffrey?”

“She was never tried for that crime,” Cersei said. She crossed her arms. “So tonight you will stand trial in her stead. After all, a Lannister always repays her debts.”

“I’m not afraid death,” Arya said, sitting up a little taller. “We are good friends.”

This time the man spoke. “Who said anything of death?”


	13. Remind Me to Thank You

The darkness pressed in all sides. The night shadows were blinders and, like his horse, all Gendry saw was the road before him and his final destination: the vague outline of Winterfell against the last blue light of the setting sun.

Gendry’s horse was not fast enough. The longer he ran, the longer the road appeared to stretch before him. Distance and time stretched out in front of him and he wondered if he was trapped, forever, on the long path between the King’s Road and Winterfell, between knowing and not knowing, between life and death.

A howl broke the twilight air once more.

He urged his horse onwards.

\--

Jaime did not know what foolish feeling had inspired him to return to the inn at the edge of Winter Town, but there he was, standing in front of it in the middle of the empty road. He should be at the feast; he would be missed, no doubt. But Cersei was his flesh and blood—they had shared a womb together. And though his sister had spared no cruelty throughout her life, that did not change the fact that he had loved her once.

He had just gathered his resolve to enter the inn when he heard the familiar sound of a galloping horse. He looked up just in time to see—

His jaw dropped and his blood ran cold as the White Knife. He was so stunned that he barely ducked out of the way in time and didn’t even have the anger to shout after the rider in protest at nearly having been trampled.

Had he seen a ghost?

It was as if he’d traveled back in time. The man on the horse could be no other than Robert Baratheon. He had the wild black hair, the ruddy red cheeks flushed with the anticipation of battle, the blue eyes set in determination.

The rider shouted a quick apology over his shoulder—it was so unlike Robert that it shook Jaime from his reverie—and then otherwise continued towards the castle.

 “Well that can’t be good,” Jaime said.

And then the horse paused, and the rider steered it back towards him.

“You’re Jaime Lannister, aren’t you?” the man on the horse asked. “Captain of the guard here?”

Now that the man was close, Jaime took advantage of the opportunity to look the rider over. Yes—he did bear a striking resemblance to the Usurper, but in truth, he looked more like Renly. Probably another one of the former king’s bastard sons.

Arya Stark, Cersei, and Robert’s bastard, all in the short span of several days. Life could be funny that way.

“Ser?” the man said.

“Yes, I am he,” Jaime said.

“The Lady Arya is in danger—gather your men.”

Jaime sighed. This one certainly had the flare for drama. Not unlike his uncle. “The greatest danger Lady Arya faces tonight is death by boredom.”

“Listen—do you hear that?” the man paused and Jaime heard the howl of a wolf. “Something’s wrong. And I don’t think it’d look so good— _ser_ —if the captain of the guard wasn’t around to protect the recently returned, long-lost Stark.”

The man—he was just a boy still, really, as far as Jaime was concerned—turned abruptly and continued towards the castle.

Jaime sighed. And headed back towards the castle.

\--

“So you’re going to torture me?” Arya said.

The old man said nothing, and Arya watched as he slowly unfurled a piece of rolled-up leather on a table to her left. The candlelight in the lantern flickered and shadows danced on the floor, on the man’s face, on the rotting wooden table. Some type of metal blade caught the candlelight and glistened. She could see rust.

“That’s your big plan?” She tried to keep her voice from quivering. This was not something she’d experienced, unless you counted changing faces with the Faceless Men. But, as she looked upon the jagged, rusty blades, she knew this would be different.

Cersei spoke no words, but her glare said enough for Arya. The man picked up one of the blades. It looked like a flaying knife.

“I have never been afraid of you,” Arya said, sending back a glare of her own. “It is you who should fear me.”

“Fear you?” Cersei laughed. “There’s no dancing instructor to rescue you now.”

And that was when Qyburn made the first slice along her finger.

\--

Gendry found the wolf halfway to the castle. It was the first time he’d gotten a good look at the beast that had helped him save Arya at Moat Cailin—he knew of course that it must be the same one. There were several gashes along its flank that had been stitched up, and it was limping as it ran. And besides, he’d heard that howl following them from the Riverlands. There was no doubt in his mind that this was the wolf that had fought the lizard lion in the swamp.

Despite its injuries, however, the wolf was almost as big as his horse, and Gendry stopped when he saw it. The wolf barked at him, and then continued limping back the way Gendry had come.

When he didn’t follow, the wolf stopped, looked back at him, and barked again.

Then he heard the sound of clanking armor.

He turned towards the castle and saw a large woman with short, straw-like hair rushing towards him on horseback.

Brienne.

“Gendry,” she said as she came to a stop next to his horse. “I thought you had left.”

“I heard the wolf howling,” he said. “Arya’s in trouble.”

“I knew something was amiss when Lady Sansa entered the Great Hall without her. She sent me to see why the wolf was howling so loudly.”

The wolf barked at them again, then started running down the road.

“We better follow,” Gendry said.

\--

After sprinting a quarter of the way to the castle, Jaime strongly regretted his lack of a horse.

He regretted it even more so when he saw the direwolf charging towards him.

For the second time, he froze in fear, but the wolf rushed passed him and he was left to stare after it.

“Jaime!” Brienne appeared from around the corner, the man-who-was-not-Robert following closely behind. “What are you doing?”

“Just what is going on?” he shouted up at them.

“Arya’s missing. We think the wolf knows where she is.”

Jaime wondered if this was what Moonboy had felt like most of the time.

\--

Gendry heard Arya’s scream and knew he must be close. He urged his horse on faster, ignoring the foam dripping from its bit, and when he turned the last corner he found the wolf scratching at the door of an inn.

He’d rode right past this inn when he’d first entered town. In fact, it was where he’d almost run down Jaime Lannister.

He whirled his horse around just as Brienne and Jaime appeared. Brienne had hoisted him up in a surprising feat of strength and they’d ridden back together.

“Kingslayer,” Gendry said, and he felt his blood boil like molten metal. “What business did you have at this inn?”

Brienne raised her eyebrows and twisted in the saddle to look at the captain of the guard.

Jaime Lannister looked as surprised and confused as everyone else, but then, he also looked guilty.

“Can the captain of the guard not patrol…”

“Jaime Lannister, answer the boy’s question,” Brienne said darkly.

Gendry gripped his hammer tightly.

Though the Kingslayer only hesitated for several moments, it was entirely too long for Gendry’s liking.

“My sister is staying at this inn,” he said quietly. He looked away, towards the ground.

“Your sister?” both Brienne and Gendry asked in unison.

“How long has she been here?” Brienne asked. She narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t know,” the Kingslayer said, his voice cracking. “I met with her earlier today. She wanted me to run away with her.”

“Is that so?”

“I said _no_ ,” Jaime said. He turned to Gendry. “Look, I know you don’t trust me, but quarrelling with me won’t save your beloved.” The Kingslayer paused. “If you want to see her alive again, I suggest you break down this door.”

And the hammer fell upon the door.

\--

For a few seconds that lasted an eternity, only pain existed. Red hot boiling pain. How could the smallest finger feel so immensely?

But then another feeling happened. A distraction. A wonderful, blessed distraction. It was a noise from above. A crashing, splintering noise.

And then the pain subsided a little.

“Qyburn!” she heard Cersei shout, “I thought you locked the front door.”

“I did.” The man put down his blade. “And now someone has broken it.”

Slowly the world came back into focus. Her little finger still burned, but the realization that life existed outside herself, outside her pain, had returned. The man, Qyburn, had ascended the stairs.

And Cersei had made her way to the table. Her hands drifted over the metal blades.

Another noise came into Arya’s head then. A sort of chant, like a prayer. “ _Ser Gregor. Dunsen. Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn. Ser Meryn. Queen Cersei._ ”

She had not killed any of them. Not a single one.

But perhaps it was too early to accept defeat. Opportunity waited before her.

“Valar morghulis,” she whispered.

\--

Gendry didn’t know what he’d expected to find behind the locked door of the inn.

But he hadn’t expected this.

The tallest man he’d ever seen towered above him. The metal helmet obscuring his face nearly touched the wooden rafters, and his shoulders stretched so wide on either side that he blocked all the light behind him. The mass of his hulking body seemed to rise from the ground like…

“The Mountain,” Jaime Lannister said.

But there was no more time for words or explanations. The man, the beast, the thing before them raised a sword and Gendry saw nothing but smooth steel.

Gendry met the blade with his shield, but even just the force of the blow made him stagger backwards. Pain exploded up his arm, but his grip held firm. His wrist hadn’t broken. He hoped.

He looked up and saw a helmet he recognized. He’d seen it in the tourneys. It had belonged, once, to the former King known as the Usurper. His father.

But inside there was no face.

Gendry raised his hammer and hit the chest of the creature with all his might.

Nothing happened.

Somewhere within the inn, a woman laughed.

Gendry took another swing, and the monster before him stepped back and swung his sword. Gendry ducked out of the way, behind a pillar, and the blade collided with the stone. Ringing filled his ears, and for a split second he crouched, dazed, behind his shield, but then another sound rose above the ringing.

Arya.

\--

“Jaime, snap out of it,” he heard Brienne say as she charged towards the giant in front of them. It was the Mountain. Jaime knew it. It had been almost a decade since he’d last seen the man—since the man had _died_. But no other human could match that size.

“Qyburn, what have you done?”

And then the Mountain’s sword swung down towards Brienne, his wife, and Jaime charged.

It had been many years since Jaime had been in a real battle. Yes, even after the Dragon Queen, Lord Jon and Lord Aegon had defeated the others from dragonback, there had been a few small skirmishes in the north as the wildlings integrated themselves into northern society—if you could call it society. Jaime had been there, leading the battles mainly from the back, directing troops. He fought when he had to, and though his left arm might have been better than the average foot soldier’s right, it wasn’t worth risking his neck to charge from the front. And the North was not really _his_ battle to die for.

Even so, fighting came naturally to him.

What happened next was a blur of blades, a flurry of footwork. Flashes of glinting metal, grunting and groaning and even still they barely kept the Mountain at bay. They were lucky. Whatever this creature was, it lacked the experience of the Mountain. It was the shell of the Mountain—not the brains or instinct of the dead fighter. It was a puppet.

Now where was the puppeteer?

That was who Jaime wanted to face. The old man that had betrayed his trust. That had betrayed nature with his undead creature.

But to look for any sign of him, to glance away from the battle at hand, could have meant death.

They danced on. Swipe. Duck. Hit. Clink. Clunk. Clang. There was a rhythm to battle and a chorus of grunts and groans. And then, somehow, through some complicated footwork, he found himself at the entrance to the hallway.

He took one glance at Brienne, at the curve of her jaw set in determination and the way her eyes focused, pointed and set on her target. He memorized that face.

And then he went to find Qyburn.

\--

The bonds encircling Arya’s wrists only seemed to tighten as she struggled, but then, finally, miraculously, the right arm of the chair bent a little further outwards. She had found a weakness.

But had she found it in time?

Cersei had taken time to select the right blade. And now she looked at Arya’s burning little finger, and the flap of skin that hung loosely, painfully, from it.

Just as the cool blade touched against her skin, just as Cersei was about to work at the flap of skin the old man had already created, the door slammed open.

“Cersei!”

Startled, Cersei twitched, and as the blade dug into Arya’s flesh, she screamed out.

“What are you doing, Cersei?” The man’s voice cracked as he spoke. Arya heard a flurry of footsteps and the blade hit the floor with a clink.

The room spun and all Arya could hear was Cersei’s voice.

“Jaime… I needed to… I needed to…”

Then the man pulled Cersei away.

“Why? Why are you doing this?” he shouted.

“Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you come back to King’s Landing?”

As the world straightened out, Arya realized she could hear a quiver in Cersei’s voice.

“You were supposed to be my champion. You said you would always be there for me.”

Jaime did not say anything. Arya looked up from her chair, and though the twins had retreated towards the edge of the lamplight, she could see the thick beard obscuring the Kingslayer’s face. Lines wrinkled at the corners of his eyes. He seemed… tired. If Arya hadn’t heard Cersei say his name, she would never have guessed this was the man she’d once seen arrive in Winterfell. Surely he must be someone else.

“Leave with me now,” Cersei said, and her voice was so thick with despair that Arya realized both of the twins had changed. Eight years had taken its toll on all of them. “We can leave here, leave all this behind, start new…”

“Cersei…”

The Kingslayer looked up towards the door at the top of the staircase.

As the pain in her pinky subsided to a steady burn, Arya realized—they had forgotten her. Grimacing, she yanked at the right arm of the chair and felt it loosen just a little more.

“We can be together now. We were always meant to be together.”

Arya yanked at the chair arm once again.

And then, with a crack, the chair broke. Cersei’s head jerked towards Arya, but Arya was quick as a snake, and she reached down, the wooden arm of the chair still tied to her wrist, flopping awkwardly, and she picked up the blade that Cersei had used and pointed it at the shadow of the woman she’d once feared. She’d once hated.

Cersei backed away.

Arya sawed at the restraints with the blade that still had her blood and skin on it. And Jaime Lannister held back his sister, but said nothing, did not help her.

The rage that had filled her moments ago had subsided somehow, looking at the pathetic wretch of a woman. She was worthless. She had suffered beyond the suffering of death.

And so, without looking back, Arya left the cellar.

\--

The battle was not going well.

At some point, the Kingslayer had left. At some point, Gendry had lost his shield. At some point, he was going to break.

He tried to think like Arya would have. “Use your environment to your advantage,” she had once told him, after the battle in the Riverlands. Without a shield, he’d taken to using pillars, beams, tables and chairs to block the blows, but they crumbled like dust beneath the blow of the giant that Jaime Lannister had called the Mountain.

“Qyburn!” Brienne shouted.

He saw her turn towards the front door, saw the old man fleeing. She started after him, but she left her back exposed.

The Mountain rose its arm.

Gendy did not think. He threw his hammer.

\--

Arya ran fast. She could hear swords. She could hear shouts. She skidded as she entered the great hall. Her finger throbbed.

And then she stopped.

The sword hit Gendry’s shoulder hard. And he crumpled to the ground.

“No!” someone shouted. It was her. It was her scream.

Armed with nothing but the flaying knife, she charged, but the man was twice her size—with no exaggeration. He took up the room like a mountain.

“Stop, my lady!”

Another body was in front of her, blocking her.

“You can’t—go find Jaime. Go get Jaime!” the woman shouted, shoving Arya back towards the hallway. And then she turned back just in time to block another blow with her shield.

Where had Gendry’s shield been?

“Go, my lady!”

And Arya went.

She didn’t have to go far. In the hallway, she collided with someone else. A small body.

Cersei.

The rage returned as though it had never left, and Arya dragged the woman into the great hall. Effortlessly. The shadow of the queen she had been, Cersei was light and frail, a feather, nothing more. A wisp.

Arya pointed the knife to Cersei’s throat.

“Call him off,” she demanded. “Call off your bodyguard.”

Cersei said nothing, and Arya pressed the knife into her skin.

Then Jaime appeared. He stopped and stared, helpless and hopeless, and did nothing.

“Jaime,” Cersei said. Her voice was as hollow as Cersei seemed to be. “You will let this girl threaten me?”

Jaime again said nothing.

“What have they done to you? You are not my brother.”

A single tear drop splashed onto the knife. The lion looked at the beast beating Brienne, but said nothing.

“Make him stop!” Arya cried, drawing blood with the knife.

Cersei turned her gaze slowly. The giant. Brienne. Jaime. She said nothing. Arya drew a thin red line over Cersei’s skin. But she did not sob or whimper.

“I do not follow commands of bratty little children.”

Arya turned to Jaime. Above the thick beard, tears formed in the Kingslayer’s tired green eyes.

“Cersei. Don’t do this. Call him off.”

“There’s nothing left for me, Jaime. My children are gone. My kingdom, in the hands of…” She shook her head. “You’re doing this to me, Jaime.”

“No, Cersei,” Jaime said, his voice sounding firm for the first time. “You’re doing it to yourself. You have always done these things to yourself.”

“Call him off, Cersei.” Arya dug the knife deeper, and blood leaked onto Cersei’s yellow dress.

“Never,” the lion whispered.

And that was it.

Arya had bottled the rage up. For the last eight years, she had buried it deep inside. Like she had buried Needle in the steps. She had hidden it away, like the statues in the crypts. Deep, deep, down into the bedrock of her soul. Now, like the red mountains of Valyria, it boiled up and over.

_Ser Gregor. Dunsen. Raff the Sweetling. Ser Ilyn. Ser Meryn._

_Queen Cersei_.

“Valar morghulis,” she shouted, and she plunged the knife deep into Cersei’s chest. Quick as a snake.

“This is for Gendry!” she shouted. And she punctuated it with another stab. “This is for my family!” Stab. “And this… this is for you!”

\--

The Kingslayer started, as if waking from a dream. The girl had moved so quickly that he had barely registered what was happening, but finally, he reached out with his left hand and grabbed the girl’s wrist and twisted. The knife fell with a thunk on the wooden floor. He pushed the shaking wolf from the shaking lion.

She had done it. She had done it.

Cersei had collapsed on the floor. Blood pooled around her, bubbled up from her mouth. Jaime knelt beside her, felt her blood soak through his breeches, and he held her.

His sister.

Was he doomed always to betray those he had sworn to protect?

Kingslayer. Queenslayer.

What would they think of him now?

Why had he hesitated? He could have stopped the girl.

Why didn’t he stop her?

“I loved you once,” he said, tasting his own tears.

Cersei’s green eyes gazed at the ceiling, at nothing, but then they moved and met his.

“You shouldn’t have stopped,” she said.

Jaime said nothing, just looked at her in despair. This woman he had loved once had died long ago and was nothing more than a shell.

But even after all these years he could read her mind. Her eyes pleaded.

She gurgled something else. “Valonqar,” she said. He didn’t understand. “Make it quick.”

He did.

\--

Over the course of her life, during her time at the House of Black and White, there had been moments when time slowed and she could watch events unfold as if she were separate from the world.

Those moments might as well have been flashes of lightning compared to this.

Cersei lay motionless on the ground at her feet. Blood spread over the wooden floor like molasses spilled from a barrel. Jaime Lannister held her, and they were poised like two statues forever entwined.

Her head turned, the world shifted, to the wall, to empty tables in the great hall, to overturned chairs. She could see every paint chip, even splinter, every grain in the wood. And finally, finally, there was the large, hulking creature. Huge. Massive. His presence seemed to fill the whole room.

And Brienne. All alone. Fighting the monster. Losing. Going to die. The monster’s sword would soon fall.

And then, as if to catch up, time sped up, faster this time.

Quick as a snake, she slipped the dagger from her boot, she blinked and was across the room, behind him.

Arya Underfoot.

She stabbed.

Nothing.

She stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, and then Brienne saw her, and Brienne understood.

Brienne advanced, and the monster fell, clanging and clashing over Arya’s body, and it crashed and crushed the tables and chairs. Quick as a snake, Arya slithered away before she could get crushed. And Brienne did not waste a moment, she swung her blade and it collided with the monster’s helmet – the monster’s helmet went rolling, rolling, rolling into the still burning, crackling flames in the fireplace.

And the helmet was empty. And the armor, a void. And it crumpled to the ground as if nothing had worn it.

Gendry.

Now Arya did not wait. She found him, found his body, lifeless, sprawled on the ground. And she knelt, like she had seen the Kingslayer do for Cersei, by his side. She could not lift him, could not hold him. So she found his hand, and held it, and it was so large around hers. Her hand was so small inside his.

“Gendry,” she said. A prayer.

But nothing.

She leaned over him, brushed his thick black hair over his brow, traced his cheek, his jaw, his neck, his shoulder. Where the Mountain had crushed him.

“Ow.”

“Gendry!”

There were no thoughts, only joy, and she hugged him, enveloped him.

“Ow!”

And she let go, and realized she’d squeezed his shoulder.

“I know,” he said, grimacing, and his eyes opened. “All men are babies.”

With his right hand, his good arm, he propped himself up.

“I thought you left…” Arya said, taking his left hand, the bad one. He did not grip back. His shoulder was probably dislocated. But that could be fixed.

“I did,” he said.

“You didn’t take the…”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why?”

He said nothing, just looked at her. And, carefully, he leaned forward, closing the distance between them. They were so close, she could feel his breath on her lips.

And then something else was kissing her – wet, slobbery, a wolf kiss. White fur obscured her vision, and wincing, laughing, groaning, she pushed Ghost out of the way.

But Gendry had leaned back against the wall. His gaze did not meet hers, but instead fixated on something – or someone – beyond her shoulder.

Arya turned and followed his gaze to see Jon standing in the doorway.

And Gendry said softly, “They’re waiting for you.”

 


	14. At the Beginning

 

Jaime could not have been sure how much time had passed. It could have been a minute. It could have been another decade, for all he knew. But at some point, a warm hand touched his shoulder, he looked up into blue eyes, and the world came back into focus.

He felt guilty then, guilty for not telling Brienne about Cersei the moment after Qyburn had come to see him. Guilty for not being more suspicious of his sister’s intentions. Guilty for not returning to King’s Landing to be her champion. Guilty for not protecting Lady Arya better. Guilty for not protecting his sister better. Guilty, guilty for everything. Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, a man who bore years of guilt upon his shoulders, who would never be free to forgive himself. For anything.

“Jaime,” Brienne said. She didn’t need to say anything else. He gently let go of his sister’s lifeless body and stood and buried his face into the crook of Brienne’s shoulder and neck. And she held him tightly and neither of them said anything.

Until, at last, they heard a voice in the front room. Lord Jon.

He pulled away and wiped his face with his sleeve.

He would face his crimes like a man.

Men from the guard had swarmed into the room. Some clustered around the bastard boy, who appeared to be in great pain. The lord of Winterfell, meanwhile, stood by the fire holding his sister’s hand. Thinking of what he had seen in the cellar, the Kingslayer gathered his resolve. This would be it; surely he would be relieved of his duties tonight.

“Lord Jon,” he said, entering the front room. He stopped when he saw just how much damage the Mountain had caused, and felt guilty, again, that he had left Brienne with no one to help fight the Mountain but the Baratheon bastard.

Jon turned at the sound of Jaime’s voice and dropped Lady Arya’s hand.

“Ser Jaime,” Jon said. “I should like to have a word with you.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Jaime bowed his head and followed Lord Jon outside. Other guards rushed passed them to help Arya and the boy. They walked in silence towards the castle. A light snow had begun to fall, and soon all that Jaime could see in the darkness of the street was Lord Jon’s expressionless face.

“Is the Lady Arya alright?” Jaime asked.

“Maester Samwell will see to her,” Jon said. “She has a quite a nasty cut on her finger. Deep, almost to the bone. Do you know what might have happened?”

“Aye, my lord. It is my fault.”

Lord Jon raised one eyebrow, but said nothing.

“It is a long story,” Jaime said.

“It is a long walk back to the castle,” Jon said.

And he told the whole story.

\--

Jon had brought half the guard, at least it felt like it, the way they filled up the inn and assembled between the broken tables and splintered chairs. People were everywhere, and in the chaos she was separated from the only person she really cared at all to see—at least right now.

Some of the men from the guard gathered around Gendry and helped him up. Someone put his arm in a sling. Some others went to fetch a cart to carry him back to the Maester Samwell. Arya could see by the look on his face that he was in agony, and in noticing his own pain she’d somehow forgotten hers.

Until Jon reached out and grabbed her hand and spots covered the world and maybe she’d forgotten to breathe slightly.

He had let go and had called for a medic and now she was being ushered to the cart. And then the Kingslayer had emerged from the hall, and Jon left with him.

“No, I’m fine, it’s just my hand, I can walk…”  But she stopped protesting when they sat her next to Gendry, and that was all she really wanted.

“You’re hurt,” Gendry said.

“Just a little,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t respond, just stared at the flap of skin hanging off her pinky finger and frowned.

Then the cart started, and the jerk of the sudden movement caused Gendry to shout out in pain. So she reached out with her good hand and held his good hand. And he squeezed, hard, and she wanted to cry.

“Where were you going?” she asked, desperate to distract him.

“What?”

“You were leaving. Where were you going?”

“Qohor,” he said.

“Qohor. I’ve been there. Well, just the once. Why did you want to go to Qohor?”

“Smith,” he said. “Master smith.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Tobho studied there,” he said.

“Tobho?”

“Tobho Mott. My master in King’s Landing.”

She traced the crook of his hand between his thumb and pointer finger.

“I can go with you.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Well, I’m going,” she said.

“Your family is here,” he said. Quietly. She hated how his face twisted up. She hated that she couldn’t fix it like she had fixed the cut on his hand so many moons ago.

“And they’ll be here when we come back and tell them all about our adventures in Essos.”

He snorted and shook his head. But she saw the corner of his lips turn up ever so slightly.

“You expect me to stay here, wearing itchy dresses that don’t fit properly, smiling and nodding to spoiled noblemen, knowing that you’re gallivanting around Essos having adventures without me?” She paused and shook her head back at him. “Stupid, stubborn bull.”

Now he smiled for real, but then the cart hit a rock and they jumped in their seats and he was wincing all over again.

“Hey, keep it steady!” Arya shouted towards the driver.

“Yes, my lady,” the driver said. But it didn’t get any steadier.

Arya sighed and then leaned against Gendry’s right shoulder, the good shoulder. She felt him stiffen in surprise, but then, after a moment, he leaned his head against hers.

And she held his hand.

\--

Maester Samwell fixed them both up. For Gendry, he had some sort of strange contraption that helped pop his shoulder back in place, but he needed someone strong to operate the lever. From the look on his face, it hurt Gendry even worse, until it was all done and over with, and that twisted expression relaxed and his eyes were clear.

Arya’s wound would take longer to heal, he said, but he had some special paste that he put underneath her skin, and he folded it back over, and the world spun again and Gendry held her left hand the whole time. Then Maester Samwell bandaged it up and she wouldn’t be able to use her right hand at all for a week.

“Thank the gods they didn’t use my sword hand,” she muttered.

\--

Sansa had never spent much time in the smithy. She hated the wave of heat that hit her face as she entered, and the way drops of sweat pearled along the edge of her hairline and dripped down her back. She hated the sulfur and smoke that invaded her nostrils. Most of all she hated the metal clangs that assaulted her ears and the sizzle of the hot metal hitting cold water.

But it was the most likely place to find Arya.

In the past week since the feast, her sister had probably spent more than half of her time there. Although Maester Samwell had recommended Gendry avoid any heavy lifting for several days, both he and Arya had still gravitated towards the armory anyways. She supposed it was a part of his character, as much as songs had been a part of hers.

Sansa entered the armory, walked past the swords, axes, and other assorted weaponry that she had never bothered to learn the names of, and went straight to the back of the smithy.

And there Arya was, again, perched at the edge of a table with an apple in one hand and a sword in the other. Sansa could only see the back of Gendry’s head, but he was pointing at the sword that Arya was holding and talking animatedly about something.

Arya laughed, and Sansa paused before stepping back into the shadows.

She almost envied her sister, a little bit, and she supposed that she always had. The way Arya seemed so relaxed all the time, like nothing worried her. Like now—one leg dangled over the edge of the table, the other folded on top. Her boots, and even her breeches—yes, breeches—were covered in mud. The braid that Sansa had spent a half hour on earlier this morning had mostly come undone, and wisps of hair floated around her sister’s red, wind-kissed face. And were those leaves in her hair? Yes, leaves.

Arya tossed the apple core into a pail in the corner and jumped down from the table. Then she took up some sort of sword-fighting stance and waved the sword around a little bit, talking all the while. Sansa couldn’t hear what she said, but then Gendry took his own sword and stood next to her and tried to mimic the movements she had just shown him.

But even Sansa could see that he hadn’t done it quite right. Arya laughed, and the bull blushed a deep red, and Arya put down her own sword and then stepped close—probably a little too close—and adjusted Gendry’s arm.

And Sansa forgot why she had come to find Arya. There was something else, something more important, that needed to be done.

Emerging from the shadows, she spoke loudly to announce her presence. “Ser Gendry, Lady Arya.”

They looked up suddenly, like two children caught breaking the rules.

“Might I have a word?” she said, looking to Gendry.

Gendry put down his sword, and Sansa saw, out of the corner of her eye, how he mouthed to Arya, “Help me.”

Arya rolled her eyes and nudged him forward.

When they were outside, and Sansa could breathe normally again, she said, “How is your arm feeling?”

“Much better, m’lady,” he said. Sansa noticed how he always kept his head bowed whenever he was around her or Jon. It reminded her a little bit of what Jon had been like as a boy.

“It pleases me to hear it,” Sansa said.

They walked in silence as Sansa led Gendry towards the godswood. She needed time to weigh her words, and besides, the godswood was the one place she could think clearly. So she waited until they reached the weirwood tree and knelt down beside the black pool.

“M’lady,” Gendry said, kneeling beside her. “Have I done something to offend you?”

“No,” she said. “I’m afraid I am the one that owes you the apology.” Before he could say anything, she continued. “The way I treated you, when you were just trying to bring back my sister…”

“You were right to be angry,” he said. “And I didn’t really think she was Arya, either, not in the beginning. You were right not to trust us.”

“Hush,” she said. “Arya told me what happened, after she escaped King’s Landing. She told me how you looked after each other. The War of the Five Kings was hard for everyone, and we all…” her voice caught in her throat as she thought about the year she had spent in the Vale. “We all did things we regret.”

She looked away, trying to hide the tears that were starting to build up. She blinked a few times and they were gone.

“We were all summer children,” she continued. “Even those of us who might have lived through winter—we didn’t remember it. Arya least of all. I remember watching her from the window of that tower…” she pointed up at the window that had been part of her chambers when she was a child. “…during my needlepoint lessons. And she would be practicing swords with Bran. She was so happy then.”

She sighed and looked back at Gendry. “You know, I have never seen Arya as happy as when she is with you,” she said softly. “Not even as a child. Even in peacetime, even in the summer, that is not something that many of us can say after the War of Ice and Fire.”

“She is happy to be home,” Gendry said.

“She is happy to be with you.” She paused and a gust of wind rustled the leaves of the weirwood tree. “There is a still a place for you here, if you would like to stay.” She raised her hand before he could protest. “But if not, then you must let Arya go with you this time when you leave.”

The boy surprised Sansa by letting out a soft chuckle. “No one ‘lets’ Arya do anything. She simply does it.”

Sansa laughed, too. Then she said, gravely, “There is only one thing I ask.”

Gendry looked at her, waiting.

“You must make sure that Arya keeps in touch.”

Gendry nodded. “Yes, m’lady.”

“Oh,” Sansa said, thinking of something else. “And you must promise to visit.”

The corner of Gendry’s lips curled up slightly, and Sansa noticed how much he looked like Renly. Lucky Arya, she thought.

“Yes, m’lady,” he said.

“Oh,” Sansa said, thinking of yet a third thing. “And you must promise to marry her.” She paused and remembered the leaves in Arya’s hair.  “With all due respect, I will not have my sister mothering bastards…”

Here Gendry spluttered, and his face flushed redder than Sansa’s hair.

“Just say ‘yes, m’lady,’” Sansa said, rolling her eyes.

“M’lady, I am just a lowly bastard, I could not…”

“Gendry,” Sansa said, “have you heard of the Lord of Casterly Rock? Lord Tyrion Lannister? Have you heard of his wife, Lady Tysha? It does not matter. It does not matter to me, or to Jon, or to Arya.”

He said nothing, and Sansa was beginning to learn that he was a man of few words.

“Jon is marrying Margaery Tyrell in two moons,” Sansa said. “She has already started her journey north. And soon after that, I will marry Dorren Umber. They are good people, we are not unhappy. But if we could marry for love… Well, I’m just saying, one of us ought to, and it might as well be Arya. So, just, think about it.”

With that, she rose and left Gendry in the godswood.

\--

Several moons passed before Sansa received a letter from Arya.

Her sister had promised profusely that she would write, and Sansa had begun to worry. Had they been attacked by bandits? Had their ship sank in the Narrow Sea?

By the time she received the letter, construction on the final tower had finished, half the court from King’s Landing had arrived (even the queen), and Margaery and Jon had married. Preparations had taken nearly a month, even after Margaery arrived, and Sansa was thankful, at least, that the work had kept her busy. But there was really only one thing that had occupied her mind the whole time, and that was her sister’s wellbeing.

Perhaps it had been foolishness, allowing Arya to leave so soon after coming home.

But then, when Daenerys had arrived, Sansa had realized that maybe it was a good thing that the Usurper’s son had left Winterfell.

The raven came on a warm day a month after the wedding. Sansa and Margaery had retired to her chambers after breaking their fast and were in the middle of their needlepoint. It was their first day of relaxation since Margaery had arrived in Winterfell, and Sansa had long wanted to reunite with her old friend.

But when Jon appeared at the door, parchment in hand, Sansa knew immediately whom it was from, and she rose, mid-sentence, to meet him.

Sansa took the parchment and read it aloud.

“Dear Sansa and Jon,” she read. “Gendry and I have just arrived in Pentos. Sansa, Pentos is beautiful, you would love it here. There are many balls and feasts, and everyone dresses so prettily, and there are always songs within hearing. But we will not be staying long.

“Within a fortnight, we’re leaving with a group of merchants to head east across the Flatlands. We will follow the Valyrian road first to Norvos, then to Qohor. It will be a long journey, but I promise to write when we reach Norvos.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to send this letter. Gendry told me to tell you that he has reminded me to write every day and that it’s not his fault that I don’t listen. One day I told him that I could teach him how to write, and then he could write these letters for me, and he promptly shut his mouth. But I’m going to teach him anyways. He’s smarter than he gives himself credit for, and I know he’ll be a fast learner when we reach Qohor. He’s already better than half the smiths there, anyways.

“When he’s done with his apprenticeship, I promise we’ll return. But I’m not promising any little wolves any time soon, so don’t get any ideas. I’ll leave that for you and Jon. Tell Margaery that I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet her, but I hear ‘tis a good match, truly.

“Jon, stay out of trouble. Sansa, make sure Jon stays out of trouble. I love you both, I miss you, and I’ll see you as soon as I can.

“With love, Arya.”

When Sansa looked up from the parchment, she could see through blurry tears that Jon had a smile on his lips, and even Margaery seemed amused.

“Your sister has a gift with words,” she said, laughing. “It sounds like she is on the verge of a great adventure.”

“Yes,” Sansa said, handing the letter to Jon, so he could reread it. “It’s just like in the songs. A perfect ending.”

“No,” Jon said. “A perfect beginning.”

\--

“Finally, a city with a proper temperature,” Gendry said as he sat down beside Arya.

The inn on the eastern edge of Pentos was crowded and warm—in fact, it was outright hot. Between the stink of vomit and stench of sweat, Arya had barely been able to stand sitting next to Gendry, husband or no. Husband—that was a strange word, she had realized. But she looked over at him, with his short, wild hair, and his flush, ruddy cheeks, and his bright blue eyes. And then she saw the two mugs in his hands. Maybe husband wasn’t so strange a word.

“For me? You shouldn’t have,” she said, taking one of the mugs. The liquid was blissfully cool at the back of her throat. She gulped it down and wished she could have inhaled it.

“That’s not very ladylike,” he said, shaking his head.

“I’m not a lady,” she said, thinking of another time. Then she added, “I’m just the wife a bastard now.”

She stuck out her tongue, but he ignored it and leaned in close to wrap his arm around her.

“My wife,” he said, repeating the words in her ear.

“It does sound strange, doesn’t it?” He was so close she could smell him, and she realized he had bathed. “You cleaned up pretty well, after all. You even smell nice, for a change.”

He didn’t respond, just kissed her cheek. They could do that, here, in Pentos, at the back of a crowded inn. Because they were married, but mostly because no one else cared.

At the front of the room, some mummer had begun strumming a lute. The tune sounded vaguely familiar, and with each pluck of the strings she tried to place it. And again, Arya thought of another time and place.

“I know this song,” she whispered.

“Do you?” Gendry asked, kissing her neck.

“This is a Westerosi song,” she said.

“Just so,” he said, mimicking her. When he hadn’t been busy getting sick, he had made fun of her on their voyage across the Narrow Sea for using that phrase so many times. “Did I marry a Northern girl,” he had asked, “or a Braavosi swordsman?”

Despite herself, Arya pulled away. “I’ve made a mistake, haven’t I?” she mused to no one. “I should have known better than to listen to Sansa. She’d have told me to marry anyone. Even that stupid Ned Dayne character. Such poor taste in husbands.”

“You don’t want me as your husband?” Gendry asked, feigning disappointment.

“No,” she said, and then she paused and listened to the song, and, when the mummer came to the right line, she sang along with him. “But you can be my forest love, and me your forest lass.”

Arya had never seen Gendry smile quite so broadly, not even on the day back in Winterfell, when Sansa and Jon had watched them exchange vows and cloaks beneath the weirwood tree. He’d been too bashful then to be excited, she supposed.

He leaned his forehead against hers and said, “As m’lady commands.”

 


End file.
